


Something I Can Never Have

by Black Box (black_box)



Category: The Batman (Cartoon)
Genre: Age Difference, Explicit Language, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, POV First Person, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_box/pseuds/Black%20Box
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne finds himself alone in the manor with Barbara Gordon on a sweltering summer morning.  Why has he never noticed how delectable she is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is very loosely inspired by "The Batman" cartoon series from the mid 2000s. 
> 
> The Batman is the red-headed step child of the fandom, probably deservedly so, but I have always found the chemistry between its Batman and Batgirl appealing.
> 
> Encounter 1 inspired by the closing scene of the season 5 episode "What Goes Up..." because apparently, Barbara Gordon actually drops by Wayne Manor in civilian clothes to hang out ...
> 
> I have done a terrible thing to a children's cartoon.
> 
> I do not own The Batman or any of its characters. If I did, it would have prominently featured porn.
> 
> Warnings:  
> language  
> teen/adult sex (Fairly mature 19-old, but still...)  
> mild dub con  
> rough sex  
> some angst  
> Other than that it's pretty vanilla, sorry guys.
> 
> Also, revolving tight first person POV, I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, myself included, but it just kind of ended up that way.

  
It never would have happened if I had gone with Alfred and Dick to the gem depository. Or if she hadn't taken her final early. Or if there had been anything on tv that morning. But there she was, stretched out next to me on the sofa, yawning occasionally and twitching her foot so that her flip-flop popped rhythmically against the sole of her foot.  
"Ooh, E True Hollywood Story!"  
"No."  
"Who is it? Lief Garrett? Who the hell knows who that is?"  
"I do."  
She lifted a skeptical eyebrow at me.  
"He was in the Partridge Family. Or the Brady Bunch, I don't remember."  
"Shouldn't it be E! True Whatever Happened to Some Child Actor from an Ancient Sitcom Story?"  
I quirked my mouth and kept flipping. "That does seem more accurate."  
I paused for a moment on an MMA match.  
"No," she said firmly, and leaned over to hit the up arrow. "Too early and too hot for cauliflower ear."  
"Oh, come on, Barb," I laughed, "it's never too hot for cauliflower ear."  
It was hot. Both of us were sheened with sweat. It was already flirting with 90 in the great room and it wasn't even 10 AM yet. I didn't like to keep the whole cavernous manor air conditioned and with the sensitive nature of my nocturnal activities, it was proving tough to coordinate greening up and rewiring the house's climate control. She got up and opened up the rest of the french doors.  
"Why aren't we down in the cave again? It's nice and cool in the cave."  
She flopped down next to me again and propped her feet on the coffee table.

I'd spent the bulk of the previous week in the caves, trying to track and keep up with a rash of dog days murders, no apparent pattern, but the murder rate seemed to have spiked in August. Jim Gordon said there wasn't enough to go on to indicate a serial, but I knew there had to be a pattern in them. If I went back down there, I'd end up getting sucked back into the case files. And I sure as hell didn't want to drag Barbara into it.  
"Nothing's stopping you, go!"  
"But I'll be bored there by myself."  
Something about bickering with her made me feel younger than when I was actually her age.

I tried to remember myself at nineteen, serious, tightly-wound, obsessed with avenging my parents' deaths. Being an only child probably didn't help either, no little sister to fight with over what to watch on tv.  
"Aren't you bored now?"  
"Well, yeah. But it's a different kind of bored when you're here."  
"Gee, thanks."  
History channel. Commercials, but I hit the guide button to see what was on. Sparta - Military Strategy and Tactical Innovations. Over in 5 minutes. Damn it.  
"C'mon, lets go down to the cave, you've got an even bigger tv down there."

There's reams of indeciferable evidence on a dog days serial killer I won't be able to keep away from and won't be able to keep you out of.  
"There's no sofa."  
"And why is that? It's not like you can't afford another couch."  
"I spend enough time down there already. If I put a sofa down there, I might as well just tear down Wayne Manor and park a trailer on top of the caves."  
"Okay, fine, I follow the logic, I just don't see the need to stick to it when it's already 89 degrees in your living room."  
"Because I said so. And take your feet off my coffee table."  
"Whatever, ALFRED."  
She made a face at me but lifted her feet. She dropped her sandals on the floor and swiveled to stretch out on the couch with her head on my thigh. She looked up at me.  
"Do you mind?"  
"No, it's fine."  
"Can I have the remote?" she pushed her luck.  
I huffed. "Fine. There's nothing on."  
She started flipping.

I still don't know what started the disasterous chain of events that happened next. She continued to chatter idly as she changed channels, providing occasional snark as she passed things that annoyed her.  
"Geez, how many channels do you have?"  
I watched a drop of sweat roll down her neck and over her shoulder blade to disappear beneath the hem of her tank top. It was slightly damp and clung to her lower back, leaving a slice of her skin exposed above the waist of her shorts. She'd actually managed to pick up a tan that summer, even with summer classes and a gang war making the costumed vigilante business hectic all through July.  
"I don't know. 700? 800?"  
"ESPN 6?"  
"'Didn't know I had that one. What's on?"  
"Something stupid, I'm sure." She kept clicking.  
If I noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra, or that her lean, muscular legs were golden and silky, would it mean that I was checking her out? I shook my head and tried to remember what she had said last.  
"Hey."  
"No sports," she insisted. "Anyways, it's all pre-taped at this time of day."  
I had to force myself to look away from the lean curves of her stomach and breasts when she stretched and her shirt rode up her body.  
"It's my TV." Stick with the classics when you've got nothing else to say. I snatched the remote from her and flipped back a few channels. "Cricket. Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand, that's probably live."  
"Really, Bruce? Cricket?"  
"I played in boarding school," I sulked. She squirmed in my lap as she tried to get the remote back without actually sitting up. Given this, it would have been easy to keep it out of her reach, but I didn't. It must have been some of that lingering immaturity that bickering with her brought out in me. We grappled over the remote until she gave up with a pout and flopped back down on the sofa.  
"Fine. You're right, there's nothing on anyways."  
She yawned and settled her head back in my lap. "I don't understand cricket. It's like baseball's mutant backwoods cousin."  
"Cricket is the older game. If anything, baseball is the mutant backwoods cousin."  She rolled her eyes.

When I think back, I can see that I was already dangerously far along a road I never should have turned down. But I soldiered on, oblivious. How many times that summer had she sat in my living room bickering with Dick or myself over what to watch? There was nothing that set that morning apart particularly. Granted, it wasn't that common for both Dick and Alfred to be out of the house at the same time. And although it was all too common for me to be celibate for several months at a time, I had been too distracted to even masturbate since I had been trying to unravel this August murder spike. But Barbara was like a kid sister to me, and I had never, never thought of her like that. She was a beautiful young woman, with her big dark eyes, silky hair and petite, athletic body, but she was a beautiful young woman that I had known since she was fifteen. Her father was a personal friend. She was a friend. An ally. Almost family. And none of that stopped my burgeoning erection.  
I stared unseeing at the cricket pitch on the television. If baseball was a reliable distraction, cricket should work twice as fast.  
"Why are there pipes on the field?"  
I could smell her and she smelled like plumeria and coconut.  
"They're called wickets." I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I could of the rules. "The batter is protecting one he's standing by, if the little cross pieces fall off, the batter is out. Or on outs. It's been a long time since I played."  
"And you really like this?" She looked up at me and I prayed she wouldn't notice the pronounced strain on my sweats. "I would have pegged you as a football fan. Boxing maybe. MMA, natch." She grinned.  
"No, I don't really like it. Let's see what else is on..." Trying to direct her attention back to the TV, I started flipping through the channels again.  
She sighed.  
"I remember when there was no question about what to watch on Saturday morning."  
For the first time, I noticed that she had the most perfect little heart-shaped bottom.  
"I'd get up a six AM to watch cartoons."  
I shouldn't have been thinking about how her perfectly firm breasts would feel in my mouth, especially not when she was talking about watching cartoons. She was still just a kid. But my cock wasn't listening to my rationale, it was pulsing and straining the seam of my sweat pants at the sight of her smooth, golden inner thigh.  
This was incestuous and wrong. She was still a child. I needed to get out of there, because that erection was not going away. A nice cool shower and a good wank thinking of anything but her, that was what I needed.  
"Um, you know..." flipping back to the history channel. Nazis. But I couldn't even count on that to kill my hard on at this point. Not unless they had concentration camp pictures. I shifted a little on the cushion, trying to take some of the pressure off my lap. "It is pretty hot in here. Maybe I'll go take a shower to cool off." I flicked off the set.  
"Okay." She lifted her head. "You know what I've never gotten about the Nazis?"  
She twisted around to look back at me and her face crashed right into my straining erection.

  
~~ * ~~

  
He stared at me helplessly, frozen with humiliation and panic. I would have laughed if I hadn't been so startled myself. Bruce Wayne sporting the rabbit in the headlights look was not something that I could get tired of. Not that I had ever seen it before. He could have played it off then, with one of his patented Bruce Wayne playboy smirks and a quick extracation out from under me and out of the great room. But it was like he was paralyzed. Not that I was doing any better. There probably hasn't been a time when I expected to be smacked by a cock less. When I was in a man's lap, anyways. Even Santa's...  
I would have understood it if we had been watching Maxim's Hot 100 or something, but cricket and a documentary about nazis? How did that even begin to equal hard on? He must have been daydreaming, because the only other thing in the room was me.  
In his lap.  
Wearing a thin tank top with no bra and a pair of twill shorts that barely covered my ass.  
Oh.  
This party in the Batman's pants was brought to you by Barbara Jean Gordon.  
Whoops.

It wasn't like I had never thought about it. There was definite crushage, when I caught my first glimpse of the Batman. And mostly it was hero worship, but a girl would have to be crazy not to entertain a few fantasies about a guy like that. Brooding, dangerous, mysterious, so yeah, occasionally, my mind may have concocted some less-than-chaste scenarios while I was in the tub.

After I got to know him though, not so much. It was hard to imagine him having sex at all. I knew that there had to be more to him than virtue, justice and laconic wit, but whatever his type was, I couldn't pretend it was anything near me. I just hoped he'd start to respect me as a caped crusader in my own right.  
Bruce Wayne, I had always assumed, was a skeevy, overprivileged playboy. I knew I wasn't his type by virtue of not being a model-slash-actress, or over 5'10", not that I cared. Although, if pressed, I would have admitted that he was pretty cute. This would have promptly been followed by a crack about STDs and courses of full spectrum anti-biotics.

After I found out his true identity, I had a hard time reconciling him with the public Bruce Wayne. I came to see it as a persona he had created out of necessity, but occasionally enjoyed adopting. By then, he was just my friend and mentor, and the only time I ever thought about sex in relation to him was worrying about him pushing himself too hard, and not taking care of his own needs. As far as I knew, he hadn't been seeing anyone for months, even as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Not that he would have told me, but the tabloids did tail him around.

Aparently, I was right. Not that I was chopped liver or anything, but until that moment, we had as much frisson as... well, a comparison eluded me. But sexual deprivation was the only explaination to why I had just run face first into a raging bat-boner.  
It was weird and... fascinating.  
My eyes dropped from his horrified face to his lap. Without really thinking, I reached out my hand and traced my fingertips over the bulging outline of his erection. Just to make sure. He groaned and went rigid - the rest of him, that is. I was definitely was not thinking at all when I wrapped my fingers around it and squeezed.  
He hissed.  
I grinned.

Maybe because I had never thought of him sexually, I was kind of shocked that when he got horny, it wasn't at all disciplined or controlled like the rest of him. The energy pouring off of him was raw and intoxicating. He needed to get laid bad. And there I was, with nothing else to do.  
It was an epically bad idea.

I should have just given him a lecture about ignoring the needs of the flesh and sent him off to the shower like he had said. But it was hot, I was horny too, and the heat was making me stupid. This was a novelty I just couldn't ignore. Why should I let some random, vapid starlet or model have all the fun? It had been a while for me too, I'd be a hypocrite to deny myself. And if my brain was having a hard time wrapping around the concept of Bruce with an erection, my body was already over it and on to 'gimme.'

I felt like I was watching from the outside when I leaned in and ran my lips along the length of him, base to tip, over the fabric of his gray cotton sweats. He whimpered, a low, convulsive noise that made his adam's apple bob. That gave me a turn, because the only other time I had heard him make that sound was when he was badly hurt. I decided to take it as a sign of approval. I wrapped my lips around the tip of his cock and heated it with a slow breath. I could smell him through the cloth. The scent of him was intoxicating that close, raw and masculine and unsanitized by air conditioning and grooming products.

"Fuck," he groaned.  
I could barely hear him, but I was sure that was what he said. That was a first for Bruce, and incredibly hot.

I started down at the base and covered him with slow, wet licks. There was a lot of ground to cover. By the time I got to the top, I was getting damned tired of those sweats. That was easy enough to rectify, I hooked my fingers under his waistband, gave it a good tug to clear his cock and pulled his sweats off his hips. The sight of his bare cock sent a hot, wet rush between my legs. I circled the tip with my tongue. I couldn't believe he was letting me get away with this. I really needed to stop.

"Barbara, stop," he whispered as I wrapped my lips around his cock.

"Hmmm?" I questioned, looking up and sliding down. His head dropped back and his hands fisted in the couch cushion, fighting not to let out a moan. His erection was mine, it was for me, and there was no way I was gonna stop, not unless he made me.  
"Barbara," he repeated, and his hips bucked anxiously. I pulled up.  
"It's okay."  
I began licking his shaft from the base again. His skin was silky and taut and he smelled incredible.  
"You need this. I'm offering."  
A big hand came up to fist around my ponytail and I thought he would pull me off of him. Instead, he guided me roughly back to head of his cock and pushed me down, insistent. Permission granted. I took the hint and began to suck in earnest. His hand stayed in my hair, guiding me to a pace that he liked and it was rough and quick. His hips thrust up into my mouth, driving his cock deeper.

After a minute, I slipped off of the couch and knelt between his legs so I had a better angle. I fisted one hand around his base so I could keep him steady and took him down to the edge of my throat. He was bigger than any guy I'd tried to swallow and it was a lot to take. I gagged a little, but his hips stilled and he let me adjust and I found I could manage it. I removed my hand to brace against his hard white thigh and pushed forward, swallowing again automatically, until his bush tickled my nose.  
I stayed there as long as I could, then pulled back to gasp in a breath. Then both of his hands were in my hair and he was pushing my mouth back around his cock. I opened my throat and let him slide all the way in and we settled into a quick rhythm. Three rough, deep thrusts and the barest beat to let me pull back and catch a breath and then he was surging down my throat again. He keened and whimpered, completely out of control. I caught "forgive me" in the slurred babble of 'fucks' and 'gods' and it broke my heart a little, but I couldn't stop, not now.

His balls were getting tighter against my chin every time I slid down and then he surged all the way down and froze and held me there.

"Ba...Bar... GOD!"

And then he was erupting, flooding my throat and I was sputtering and gulping and trying to keep up, but I couldn't and his come filled my mouth and flowed down my chin and his whole body shuddered and heaved until he finally relaxed his grip on my head and let me pull back to breathe.  
My heart was pounding and I was panting for breath and, fuck, it had never been like that before. I could taste him everywhere and he was salty and sweet and slippery.

I'd just sucked off the Batman. And it was awesome.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Temptation is a slippery slope, and so is she.

  
I lasted for an embarrassingly short time while her mouth was on me. My horror at what I was doing only seemed to fuel my excitement. I had never been that savage with a woman before. And Barbara was still just a girl.  
I was shaking with the intensity of my release, reeling with horror, and I didn't know how I was going to face her, what I was going to say when she lifted her head; Little Barbara Gordon, who I had known since she was a kid, who was barely past legal age, who had just given me an incredible blow job. She had obviously done that before, so at least I could take some comfort in the fact that I hadn't been her first. And that bothered me, although I didn't know why. Protectiveness would be kind of hypocritical at this point, and posessiveness was even more disturbing. Because I should have never let that happen. And I could never let it happen again.

What would she think of me now? After what I'd done... What if I'd hurt her? Everything about me was too big for her, too much. Grown women twice her age and experience had never taken that much of me before, certainly never let me thrust down their throats like that. Not that she'd let. I'd just taken; taken and demanded and I'd been forceful and rough and she'd been choking and gasping for breath. She was still panting, and carefully licking up all of the come that had overflowed her mouth.  
"Barbara? Are you okay?"  
She looked up at me, her mouth still ovaled around my barely softened cock, her cheeks sucking in. She let me slip from her mouth.  
"Okay isn't the first word that springs to mind," she said dryly, cocking an eyebrow, and I didn't know what the first word might be. I couldn't imagine it would be anything good. But while my mind was swimming through the possibilities - disgusted? violated? angry? - she held my cock to the side and began to lick the come from my balls. They were tender from the draining, body-wracking orgasm she'd just given me and when she sucked one, then the other into her mouth, it sent a jolt of pain and lust through me that made my cock twitch in her hand.  
"You don't have to..."  
"What?" She didn't look up. "Mop up? It'll get all over your sofa, leave a stain."  
"I can get a towel."

I should have noticed that my cock was already dry when she started licking it again, and hardening to nearly the point where it had been when this debacle started. But I was too distracted by guilt and panic and rekindling lust. She circled her tongue lazily around and around the head of my cock, until it was hard again. Everything was happening too fast. Finally, I reasoned out -  
"You're not okay, then what...?"  
She raised her head and grinned at me, wiping off her chin with the back of her hand.  
"So horny."  
I stared stupidly as she stepped out of her shorts and the cutest pair of yellow and green polka dot panties.

She had tan lines. I had never seen her in a bathing suit, but I could see clearly the sillouette of her low cut bikini bottom, a stretch of taut golden belly, and pale sliver of soft, milky skin, bisecting her hip bones and skimming across her pubis. It made my mouth water. Then she knelt onto the couch to straddle my lap and took my cock in her hand.

Getting head from her was a venal sin, but this... If we did this, I was going to lose her. There was no coming back from this. Fuck, there was already no coming back.  
"We can't... We can't do this," I stammered, mesmerized by her smooth, plump little pussy lips, topped with a neat little triangle of ginger fur. They were swollen enough to part and I could see her inner lips, pink and glistening, between them.  
"It's okay, I'm on the pill."  
That punched me in the gut a bit, because the practical concerns of unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancy hadn't even been on my radar of all the reasons this was a bad idea.  
"We can't. Barbara, we can't," I repeated. "You're my partner."  
Still, I pulsed and strained in her grip, hard as stone.  
Her little hand was so warm and soft around my cock and I wanted to thrust up against it. I wanted to thrust up into her wet little cunt.  
"I need to come. Sucking you off made me so wet, I gotta come now, I gotta. Please, Bruce? Please?"  
Damn the way she said 'Please.' I knew it wasn't as wrong to leave her unsatisfied as it was to have sex with her, but the prospect of the second wrong was so much more appealing right then, and I was not accustomed taking pleasure from a woman and not returning it.  
"I don't want to hurt you."  
"You won't. You won't. It's okay. This is just once, then it never happened, okay?"  
I knew it would never work out like that, but I nodded, mesmerized.

She took my cock and angled it so the head rubbed her swollen labia, coating it with slippery liquid. My legs tremored and I had to grip the sofa cushion to stop myself from dragging her down on to the length of my cock, as far as she could go. Slowly, very slowly, she sank down onto my cock, her tight little pussy stretching open to take me in. Her hot juices seeped out of her and ran down my shaft, tickling it. Her thighs were slick with sweat and it was beading on her chest and neck and running down between her breasts. She gave the softest sigh as she worked herself on my cock, up and down, sinking a little further down each time.

There was a striking contrast between my size and hers, but she was right, she was very wet and although she was as tight as hell, she didn't show any sign of pain as she took me in. She put her hands on my shoulders and swiveled her hips.  
"Mmmmhnn. Oh fuck, yeah," she hummed.  
She dropped her head back languidly and thrust out her chest and I could see her nipples tight and erect throught the thin, sweat dampened fabric of her top. I wanted to taste them, I wanted lick and suck at them.  
She thrashed and panted against me, her fingernails digging into my shoulders through my shirt. I gasped.  
"B-Barbara. God."  
I grabbed her hips and gaped down to where her hot little pussy swallowed me, too shocked to really register how this had happened. All that registered was that I had my cock inside her and she was fucking me.

I'd never felt anything so good, never done anything so unforgivable.

  
~~ * ~~

  
God, he was huge.  
That was the thought that was running through my head as I took him in. He'd felt big in my mouth, but now he felt downright huge. Huge and hot and so very hard. I wanted to take all of him in, but there just wasn't any more room inside me.  
A tight, fiery ball was already starting to build in my stomach. I was going to come soon, I could feel it building, and it was making my head swim. I don't know if it was because I had been single and dateless for most of the summer, or because of the illicit thrill that came from knowing that it was him, that I was riding the fucking Batman, the ultimate forbidden fruit. Or maybe it was just Bruce, how male he was, how large and strong. His hands gripped my hips tightly and I could feel the tension in his forearms, how hard he was straining not to squeeze me with all of his strength. But he wasn't trying to steer me, wasn't trying to set the pace or pull me down harder onto his cock. He was just hanging on, clinging to me like a punch-drunk boxer on the ropes.

His hot breath tickled my skin and his big hands kneaded my bottom. I was panting and slick with sweat, wild from the searing heat of his cock stretching me, filling me up. Wet strands of my hair licked around my face and stuck to him when I rocked forward, and my sweat dripped on to both of us from the tips.  
Oh, God.  
When I arched my back and leaned backwards the blunt head of his cock stabbed me in nicest possible spot and it sent tingles down my legs and up my spine and stoked the heat that was blazing in my stomach. I reached back and braced my hands on his knees.  
Then I was unravelling, out of control, mindless, losing my rhythm in the urgent need to go faster.  
"Oh God, oh fuck, I'm gonna... I'm gonna..."  
I bounced frantically in his lap. My toes curled to the point of cramping and my thighs shook.  
I gasped and threw my head back as my orgasm crushed me like an avalanche. I think I was screaming then, but I didn't care. I shook and ground myself against his hips, doing whatever it took to keep the onslaught of pleasure washing over me. I could feel something hot flooding out of me and soaking my thighs and his, and I knew it wasn't from him, that it was mine.  
"Oh! Jesus! GOD! Bruh-Bru-Bruuuuuuuuu-ce!"

I collapsed onto his chest, my hips still churning urgently, riding out the last exquisite waves of my orgasm. Aparently there was enough room for him after all, because when my pussy finally stopped its violent contractions, his cock was sunk to the hilt inside me. I ground my clit lazily against his public bone, shuddering at the fresh shocks it sent through me.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me to his chest, stroking my waist and quivering a little beneath me. He unfastened my already touseled pony tail and smoothed back the hair that was sticking to my face and neck.

I clung to him, dizzied and light-headed. Wow.  
First orgasm without any kind of direct stimulation to my clit, I realized, feeling inappropriately proud of that milestone.

He was still combing his fingers through my hair, pulling it back from my face and for a strange moment I thought he might be fixing my pony tail. Then he fisted his hand in what he'd grabbed of my hair and tugged my head up from his chest to look at me.  
There was something atavistic in his face that strengthened the impression of a punch-drunk boxer. He was slick with sweat and swaying slightly, like he was intoxicated, but his eyes were sharper and harder than I had ever seen them when he wasn't under the cowl. He pinned me with them, and I couldn't look away, couldn't turn my head because of his grip. He was looking into me as he narrowed the little gap between us and I was frightened to be the subject of his scrutiny like that.  
I swallowed convulsively, not sure what he was going to do. I knew it wouldn't be good.  
I realized he was going to kiss me.

It seemed like a really bad idea, even compared to the fact that I was still skewered on his erect cock, but when he pressed his hot mouth over mine all rational thought fled and I just kissed him back, letting it happen. He was a hell of a kisser. His mouth was hard and demanding, and when I parted my lips to the fierce, insistent assault of his, the tip of his tongue plunged into my mouth and lit me up like a christmas tree. His fist tightened in my hair and he bent my head back and surged forward.  
I knew this was a mistake, but I never, never meant to take it this far, this was spiraling into thermo-nuclear event territory. But God, his kisses made me feel drunk, made me crazy.

He engulfed me with his ferocity, his arms banded around me, his chest covering me, his mouth slanting over mine. He was so hard, all of him. He released my hair and brought his hands up to cup my jaw, holding me immobile while he bent me further back and ravaged my mouth. I was disoriented when he released my face and began to migrate down my neck with hard sucking smacks and little nips. A big, rough hand came up to palm my breast and he squeezed, then caught my nipple between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger and pinched until I whimpered. He released me only long enough to worm his hand under the hem of my sweat soaked tank top and squeezed again, palming and rubbing my breast and tugging at my nipple. I thrashed and gyrated on his thighs, scraping at his forearms with my fingernails. My other breast was beginning to ache from his inattention and I let go of him long enough to tug my shirt up to my armpits, hoping he would get the picture. Instead, he let go of my other breast to wrap his arm around my waist and lifted me nearly off his cock to hold me against him. I mewled in inarticulate protest, until he dipped his head to take my neglected nipple into his mouth. That made me scream.  
His hands were rough and calloused and his mouth was hot and wet and he alternated between my breasts, hand, mouth, mouth, hand, while I writhed on his cock like an insect on a pin. I couldn't think. I couldn't speak. Finally he released me with a gasp to drop back onto the full length of his cock. He dropped his head to my shoulder

His hips started to buck up into me with increasing urgency and it finally registered that he hadn't gotten off yet.  
"Fuck, Barbara, oh God, Barbara. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he whispered against my neck.  
"Shhhh," I begged, "Don't. Don't," because I couldn't stand to hear him apologizing for it, not now, not like this.  
I quieted him by riding his cock urgently, tightening my muscles around him until his eyes rolled back. His hands tightened on my hips.

"Wait, wait, don't go yet, I think I can come again."  
I darted my hand down between my churning thighs and circled my clit with a fingertip. It wasn't going to take much.

I was close but I just couldn't quite seem to get there. He had his eyes squeezed shut and his breath hissed between his teeth and I knew he was struggling for control. After a minute, he opened his eyes and grabbed my wrist brought my hand up to rest on his shoulder. Then he reached back between us and found my stiff, swollen clit. He began rolling it between his fingers and I squealed at the intensity. I wrapped my arms around his neck and rode him harder.  
"Come for me," he whispered roughly in my ear, and I did, shuddering and grinding desperately against his fingers, dousing him with even more of my come.

Finally, I collapsed against his chest, trembling and numb. My vision was graying around the edges, but this time he didn't let me rest. He was twisting and had me on my back on the sofa next to him, hips still pumping urgently as he re-adjusted me and positioned himself above me. He bent my knees back and apart, tucking them against his flanks. He cupped his hands under my shoulders and drove into me wildly. His breathing was ragged and his eyes were wild and unfocused. I rocked my hips up to meet his thrusts as best as I could and squeezed his chest with my thighs.  
He wasn't holding anything back then, the whole sofa shuddering as he pierced me deeper than should have been possible with every inch of his rigid cock. Then he faltered, and I felt his cock start to pulse inside me. He let out a yell that was almost a roar and jerked spasmodically as he emptied himself inside me.

I think I came again then, the feeling so intense it overwhelmed me. We bucked and ground against each other, slowly winding down until we came to a stop. I looked up at him when I could manage to move again.

I could see it happen, see him finally realize the implications of what we'd done.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after you suffer a complete lapse of reason and sleep with your teenage sidekick? Angst and self-flagellation are probably a good place to start.

  
  
  
"Barbara..."

I gave him a sheepish little finger wave.  
"Hiya."  
"I-I-I-I..."   
His eyes were wide and horrified and he scrambled back away from me, out of me, his cock sliding from me with a juicy plop.  
"Um..."

He jerked his sweat pants up from his ankles.  "I...I don't know what came over me."  
I grinned at him and raised my eyebrows.  Sometimes he was just too easy.  "Me?"  
He actually blushed.  

"I'm so sorry."  
"What for?"  
"I-I-I never should have let that happen."  
"What, let me have orgasms?  God, remind me never to date you, Bruce."  
"No."  He sounded exasperated now, which was better than mortified, I guessed.

"Have orgasms yourself?  Earth to the Batman.  You are human.  Sex is kind of a necessity.  I wouldn't point this out to you but aparently you've lost track.  How long has it been, Bruce?"

"No!" he almost shouted "I never should have touched you!"  When he saw how startled I was, he lowered his voice.  "I should never have touched you...like that." 

"Well, probably not," I admitted, "But it wasn't a one sided thing.  I was here too.  I was... touching."  I got a visceral flash of the feel of his cock against my lips, in my hands.  I shivered involuntarily and blushed myself.  God, was I touching.

His eyes burned into me and for the first time I was aware of how naked I was.  I pulled my tank back down over my breasts, as far down as it would go.

"It wasn't your fault, I don't want you to think for a minute that this was your fault."

I sat up.  I should have picked up on his anguish, but he was making me angry.  
"My fault?  Why not?  I'm not a child, Bruce, I can take the heat for my own actions."  
"What's changed in the past year that has turned you so completely into a grown woman?"    
"I haven't been a child since my mother died, you of all people should know that.  But that is not my point.  I am not some trembling victim here.  So yeah, we were incredibly stupid and impulsive, both of us.  We didn't invade Poland, we had sex.  It was a mistake."  
"Yes, it was," he replied tersely, closing his eyes and clenching and unclenching his fists. 

Ouch.  Okay, that had stung.  My stomach somersaulted and I was drenched with insecurity.  He seemed so cold, suddenly.  
"At least it was a hot mistake," I joked weakly, "Definitely scratched an itch for me."  
He winced.    
Of course it was a mistake.  He was Bruce fucking Wayne, he could have any woman he wanted, all of them glamorous, gorgeous, experienced and uninhibited.  I was just an scrawny pest of a kid he barely noticed.  He never would have touched me if he hadn't been in dire straits.  I succeeded in holding back the tears that prickled the back of my eyes, but I couldn't stop myself from babbling.  

"Was it not...?  I didn't do it right?  It wasn't good?"  
He looked at me again and I wished he wouldn't.  
"No!"  he barked, startled, then softly, "No.  No, not that.  I-it was... It felt...really good, but..."  
Really good.  Well, that was better than okay.  I would have gone with something like earth shaking, or brain melting.  It had been brain-meltingly good for me, but then I hadn't been doing this for very long.  
"But I'm like a kid sister to you,"  I continued for him, since he seemed to be at a loss for what to say next.  "You don't think of me like that, and you never would have touched me if it hadn't been so long since you touched anyone?"

He opened his mouth like he was going to deny it, then sighed.

"Basically."  He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets.  "God, I'm old enough to be your father."  He began to pace.  
"Really?"  I questioned.  He was just determined to tear himself up about this.  "You sire a lot of kids when you were fourteen?"  
"No, but, I mean, I could have.  Physiologically."  
I rolled my eyes.  "Uh-huh, sure.  You're a depraved child molester."    
His shoulders slumped and he stopped, his back to me.  Okay, not the time for sarcastic humor.

"That was a joke."  
"Funny."  
"For the love of Christ... I'm an adult!  In the eyes of the law, in the eyes of anyone with eyes.  You are not my father, and you're not old enough to be my father.  And even though it feels like we're family, kind of, we are not related.  It was just a mistake.  A regular, human mistake.  I didn't get hurt, I don't think you got hurt, and it's over and done.  So can we not make this into a big deal?" I asked, reaching for my shorts on the floor. "You're my friend, and I don't want this to be weird.  For either of us."

He looked away uncomfortably as I stepped back into them.

I examined him and could tell that he wasn't listening to me, he was already sinking into a brood.  "Aparently I need to worry about you more than me," I muttered.  "Look. Would it be okay if I took a shower?  I'm all sticky, and I have a clean t-shirt in the gym, I think."

Nothing from him that said he'd even heard me.

"Bruce?"  
"Yeah.  O-of course.  Go ahead."  
  
  
~~ * ~~  
  
  
I never should have kissed her.  
  
Touching her was a mistake.  
Screwing her was an abomination.  
But if I could take one thing back, I never would have kissed her.  Because despite what I'd said, that made it more than a mistake.  That made it real.  I stood there looking down at the couch where we'd....  There was a stain now, a wet, irregular patch where we'd... I couldn't bring myself to think it.  

I took a breath and closed my eyes; where Barbara had come, twice, with my cock inside her, drenching me with her release, and where I'd spilled inside her; where I'd kissed her like a lover; where I'd fucked her like an animal.  I opened my eyes, hoping the stain would have disappeared, that it was all a humiliating fevered day dream, but it was still there.  

I'd forgotten how messy sex could be.  I walked numbly over to the bar and wet down a couple of bar mops and returned to swab the stain.  It smelled strongly of sex, and it had permeated the leather.  It was never going to dry before Dick and Alfred got back so I settled for flipping the cushion.  I tossed the bar mops and tried not to think about the heat of her soft mouth on mine; the way she responded, hesitant, but open.  She tasted so sweet.  Unbidden, I thought of tasting her hot little cunt and my mouth flooded and my cock began to swell again.  I let out a frustrated, half-sob, half grunt and screwed my eyes shut, shook my head violently.    
I needed to keep myself busy.  
  
It still reeked of sex on that side of the room.  The french doors were already open, but I retrieved  a couple of floor fans and set them spinning to air the place out, automatically scanning the room for any evidence that might give me away.  Like Barbara's yellow cotton panties, wadded up and kicked just under the sofa.  I picked them up but was at a loss for what to do with them.  I cringed to think of the excrutiating exchange that would be involved in returning them to her.  

I could just throw them away, bury them under the rest of the trash and hope that Alfred didn't happen across them when he was emptying the bin.  But then what if she came looking for them, what would she think to learn that I had thrown them away, like a rapist trying to hide the evidence of his crime?  And if I didn't tell her, what would she think?  That I had kept them, like a dirty old man, like a fixated pervert.  I fought the sudden and conflicting impulses to drop them like a hot poker and bring them up to my nose for a sniff.  Right then, lesser of many evils.  Nut up, Bruce.  Get them back to her.  I tracked down her flip flops and her hair tie so that I would have something else to hold on to.  
  
I headed downstairs, to the locker room just off the gym.  I could hear the water running.  She was still in the shower.  I slipped in as quietly as I could and crossed the gym to where the rest of her clothes lay crumpled.  The water cut off then.  Damn it.  I froze, nearly turned and ran panicked from the room, but that was no good.  I heard her padding out of the shower.

"Barbara?"  I asked softly, so she'd know I was there.  I turned away from the shower room door, not wanting to see anything, not wanting to see her.  I saw her anyways, in the mirrored wall of the gym, pulling the towel she had been drying her hair with down to cover her body.  I dropped my eyes to the floor.  
"Um."  Avoiding her eyes, "You, uh, left your....  in the great room."  
"Sorry," she said softly.  
"No, I, um, I - I just thought you'd want them back."  
"Oh.  Thank you."

I put them down on the floor and fled to my own bathroom to wash the scent of her off of me, scrub myself raw if I had to.  
  
I would have paid a billion dollars right then to have a door on my bedroom, something I'd never wanted before, but I needed to know I was alone.  I was grateful that we hadn't been up here in the master suite watching television.  Otherwise, I would have her in my bed now, still mad with lust, soaking the sheets with sweat and come until she begged me to stop.  My cock pulsed hotly at the thought.  Disgusted with myself, I stripped off my damp clothes, shoved them to the bottom of the hamper, and stomped into the bathroom.   I didn't bother with the hot tap, just turned the cold water up as high as it would go and let it pummel me.  
  
It had really happened.  I had fucked sweet little Barbara Gordon, still barely more than a child; Barbara, who I cared for, who I loved and respected and trusted.  My partner.  If it had been another man who had done it, I would tear him apart with my bare hands.  I let out a dry sob and slammed my fist into the shower wall, glad that I had gone with brushed concrete instead of tile.  But it didn't hurt enough.  I laid into it, yelling, until I couldn't anymore.  I slumped against the shower stall.  God help me.  What was I going to do now?  
  
For a long time I just let the water pour over me.  
  
I couldn't undo what had been done.  I wanted nothing more than to erase this morning and start over.  
  
Finally, mechanically, I stood and lathered myself up.  I scrubbed roughly until every hint of her scent was gone.  I wanted it to hurt.  I washed my hair, I shaved.  I started to shake from the cold and knew I couldn't stall facing her anymore by lingering in the shower.  
I tried to avoid looking at myself in the mirror when I got out.  I towelled myself off, plagued with intense sensory flashes of my encounter with Barbara that had me sweating again, had blood rushing to my groin.  I wanted to break everything in my bedroom, but then I would have to explain to Alfred why I had, and I had nothing to tell him but the truth.  I could never face him again, if he knew.

I dressed, trying to convince myself it was just a coincidence that I chose an identical pair of gray sweats and white undershirt.  
"It never happened," I tried repeating experimentally to myself as I stood facing the stairs.  "It never happened."  
She was willing to pretend.  I didn't know if I could.  
  
I was going to go into the kitchen and blend myself something healthy and unpalitable, but I heard her rattling around in there, whistling tunelessly to herself and I chickened out.  I wasn't ready to face her.  I was too afraid.  
  
Instead I went back in to the great room and sat down stiffly on the sofa, as far from the stained cushion as I could.  I knew I would never be able to look at the thing again without thinking of this.  I needed to find an excuse to spill something on it so I could have it re-upholstered.  Even better, I would replace the whole thing.  Red wasn't really my style, it had been the product of some interior designer Alfred had hired when we remodelled the upper floor to be something more tollerable and less stodgy than the rest of the manor.  
  
Dick and Alfred were coming up the stairs.  I heard the tone of Dick's voice first, complaining, though I couldn't make out the words.  Then Alfred:   
"Yes, it was rather a bust, wasn't it?  Do you young people still say bust?"  
"Not so much.  But, hey, good lunch.  Are there any more of those cookies left?"  
"I believe so, Master Dick, if Miss Gordon hasn't gotten into them."  
  
I retrieved the remote, flipped on the TV and pretended to be engrossed by CNN.  
  
Barbara wandered in then, hair still wet, with a big bowl of popcorn.  
"Hey." She gave me a slightly awkward shrug and sat down in a chair by the window.  "Popcorn?"  I shook my head automatically.  I couldn't handle getting that close to her;  and if nothing else, I didn't think I could keep anything down at that moment, not with the way my stomach was churning.  
It was probably the best approach, just pretending it never happened, especially with Alfred and Dick entering the room.  
  
"Hey, Babs."  
She rolled her eyes.  Dick glanced at the TV and dismissed it.  Then he noticed both of our wet hair.  
"Hey, you guys been training with out me?"

Barbara just about choked on her popcorn, but she still recovered faster than me.  
"Yeah, Bruce and I got a bit of a workout in."    
Dick didn't seem to register the flush that spread up her cheeks, or the panicked squirming that overtook me.  I was grateful that Alfred had walked straight through into the kitchen or he would have picked up on our mutual discomfort instantly.  
"Man!" Dick whined,  "you couldn't have waited for me?"  
"I'm up for another round,"  Barbara shrugged.

I was unprepared for the surge of paranoid jealousy that filled me.  Was she sleeping with Dick too?  Not that we were sleeping together.  It was just one stupid mistake.  And not that it would be as bad, Dick was only a couple years younger than her.  They were peers.  They were teenagers.  I was thirty three.  
  
"Bruce, you in?"  
Or maybe not.

"Uhh-"  I stammered, still trying to regain my composure.  "You two go ahead, maybe I'll join you later."  
"Huh, guess she wore you out," Dick teased me.

"Yeah, Brucey, we gotta work on your stamina."  She grinned at me like it was some kind of joke.  I guess it was.  I was mortified, and it took all my discipline not to flush crimson.  "Wait 'til I finish my popcorn, though,"  she turned back to Dick, "I hate eating it cold.  You want some?"  
Dick never turned down food.  They chattered rivalrously and I stared unseeing at CNN until they headed down to the cave.    
  
I spent the rest of the day in the gym, working the heavy bag and sprinting on a treadmill, trying to think of anything but the feel of her soft, yielding little mouth.  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was the queen of unpleasant truths, and she seemed determined not to pitch him any softballs today.

Mistake the first, I picked up the phone without looking at the caller ID.  
"Gordon residence."  
"Hey, Babs-ee-er... Barb! Barbara."  
"Dick," I clipped, making it clear I didn't mean his name.  
"Okay, okay, I promise I won't call you Babs ever again."  
"I'm so sure."  
"I mean it, never, ever again, if you can just do me this one tiny little favor..."  
"So you're blackmailing me with your own obnoxious behavior? Um, no."  
"Oh come on, you haven't even heard what it is yet."  
"No."  
"Come on, I bet you're bored out of your skull with no school work and stuck at home with dear old dad."

He was right, I was bored out of my mind, and I didn't even have Pops for company. He had gone in to the office for a few hours and insisted that I stay home and get some relaxation in while I could. He was starting to soften on the 'no police work for Barbara' front, especially since at school I was getting way deep into the computer forensics program, which was a line of law enforcement highly unlikely to get me shot - unlike my side gig, which had gotten me shot four times this summer alone. I was wearing kevlar, sure, but it had been touch and go to keep hidden from him. But he still didn't like me hanging around the precinct pumping the detectives for case info.  
I couldn't move into the dorms for another two weeks and even though I had my classes set, most of them hadn't released the official book list yet, so I couldn't even get a jump on my studying. We didn't seem to have anything brewing on the caped crusader front, although I bet there was something out there I could have worked on if Bruce would just give me direct access to the JL systems.  
I was curled up on the sofa watching tv and poking around the Bat-net on my laptop, trying to find a backdoor into the Justice League network and snooping around looking for a hint about what Bruce was up to. He had close to 400 police records open, all of them disappearances and unsolved deaths, some dating back to the mid-nineties but I couldn't see a pattern to them or the earmarks of any of our usual suspects. He hadn't said anything about it, but from his file history, it looked like he'd been digging into this for weeks.  
And I was going a little stir crazy. It was still hot, although at least we had a leaky old window air conditioner in the brownstone.

"Nuh-uh," I rebutted pointlessly, "I'm watching the Mythbusters marathon."  
I heard furious keystroking on the other end.  
"Ha, which is over in ten minutes and anyways, I know you've seen this one like, ten times already."  
"Eleven. Shut up."  
"So you should totally come over."  
"No."  
"Oh come on, why not?"

_Because I had incestuous hot monkey sex with your foster dad yesterday and I think it would still be awkward._

"Ummm..."

I was trying to forget about it, I really was, but I knew Bruce would still be skittish. I hadn't seen him at all yesterday after Dick and Alfred got back, and I was pretty sure this whole thing would blow over better if I gave him some space.  
It would probably be better for me too, seeing how I had woken up this morning soaked in sweat - and other fluids - from a technicolor wet dream replay of the whole thing, especially that kiss. There was no way I could be around him without turning all flushed and squirmy.  
I should have been more bothered by it, I knew this.  
But, fuck, he was an animal. That body, that mouth, that raw intensity; the way he tasted... I really wished I was someone else, anyone else, so we could do it again. Absently, I opened a browser window and started a search for sex toys. I wasn't ready to attempt another boyfriend, the wounds from my last were still a little too fresh, but I needed something to take the edge off, maybe something as big and girthy as Bruce was. With a sturdy german motor. I tried to remember what we had been talking about.

"I just don't want to. It's too hot."  
"We're down in the caves. I'm cool as a cucumber."  
We. As in he and Bruce. Yeah, I was definitely not going over there.  
"Good for you."  
"Well, unlike you, slacker, I got school that starts next week and I had to cram my whole summer reading list into last week and I'm totally stuck on my Anna Karenina essay."  
"Ask Bruce. He likes Tolstoy."  
"I sort of told Bruce that I finished my reading list in July, and I really don't want to be grounded for the first month of school."  
Typical. I laughed.  
"Who's the slacker again?"  
"Oh, come on, you know how crazy July was. And unlike you, some of us have better things to do that living, eating, and breathing homework."  
"I do not! I'm just organized and have excellent time management skills. You should try it some time."  
"Please, Barb? You know he won't let me patrol if my grades slip at all. I'll owe you a huge one."  
"I don't know. Ask Bruce if it's okay. You're supposed to be getting ready for school and all."  
I don't know why I hadn't thought of that sooner. Let Bruce think of an excuse.  
There was a scrabbling noise and I could hear their voices, soft and indistinct on the open line. Bruce didn't sound happy.  
Dick picked up again.  
"He says it's fine, just to stay the hell out of his file history and his open sessions or he'll sic the AI security on you."  
"Pfft. I set up half of that security," I responded automatically, wondering why Bruce hadn't told him that I should stay home. What was he working on that he would rather have to face me again than keep digging into it? Unless it wasn't getting to him as much as I worried it would. Maybe everything would be okay.  
I heard another scrambling noise and the phone went staticky for a few seconds and then Dick spoke again in a low whisper.  
"You want in to the JL net, right? It's on a completely separate system, but I might be able to patch you in. If you help me out."  
"You little weasel!"  
It made sense that it was on its own net but I'd have to get a serious amount of time in the wiring closet to find it by trial and error. Not to mention that Bruce would totally catch me. He had me over a barrel. "Fine. One hour."  
I closed my laptop and went to get my bike out, still not entirely sure this was a good idea.

  
~~ * ~~

  
"Barbara, wait!" I jogged down the driveway to where she was mounting her bike. "We need to talk."  
I pulled up a couple paces shy of her. It felt too awkward to get any closer.  
"What about?"

I had seen her for less than a minute when she had arrived, before she headed up to the house with Dick for an undisclosed purpose I suspected had something to do with the furious reading he had been trying to catch up on and thought I hadn't noticed.

I had barely looked up at her when she got there, only murmured "Hello, Barbara," and turned back to my work. I heard a soft "Hey," before she shooed Dick back up to the house, but she seemed as anxious as I was to avoid me.

I only knew she was leaving because Dick had informed me when he reappeared in the caves. I hadn't gotten anything done in the past two hours, made no progress on the fresh murder that had happened the night before, a stabbing in the narrows, and the disappearance of a rug salesman only reported by his landlord after he was three weeks late on the rent. I would go out and look into them after dark, but I wasn't ready, hadn't done the research, hadn't read through the background search results. I had only thought about her, up in the house with Dick, and what a mess I'd made of things. I needed to talk to her, much as I dreaded it. I couldn't just leave things how they stood. So I jogged out to where she normally parked her motorcycle when she visited in her civvies, hoping to catch her where we could have a private conversation.

"You know what about," I answered firmly.  
She widened her eyes at me.  
"Whether I should rush a sorority? Where the Joker gets his keen retro vests? Who actually buys those little dried frog mariachi band dioramas?"  
"About yesterday morning," I half growled, frustrated by her snarky attitude.  
"Can we not?" she asked, her own irritation slipping out from beneath her forced chipperness.  
I took a breath to reign in my temper and compose myself.  
"Please, Barbara."  
It came out needier than I had intended.  
She sighed and put her helmet back down.  
"You're not making it easy to pretend it never happened."  
"We can't."  
"Why not? I'm game."  
"Because it happened."  
"And what exactly are we going to accomplish by rehashing it?"  
"Maybe we would resolve something!" I pled. "Maybe I could look you in the eye again."  
"You're looking me in the eye now."  
"Damn it, Barbara! You can't just brush this off. I have to make this right."  
"How?"  
I swallowed.  
"I don't know."  
"Neither do I. But then, I don't feel compelled to fix it either. You can't un-have sex."  
She was the queen of unpleasant truths, and she seemed determined not to pitch me any softballs today.

She scowled at me.  
"Okay, so we're talking about it. What do you want to say?"  
I used to know how to talk to her when she got like this. This time, I just hung my head.  
"I don't know."  
"Great. Are we done?"  
"Barbara..." I ventured another look at her but her face was still closed off, defensive, defiant. I sighed and dropped my head back to stare up at the darkening evening sky. I didn't know how to do this. Maybe I should've just told her that I couldn't be around her any more. Only I couldn't imagine my life or my work without her, or how I'd manage to keep her out of it.

"Can I go?"  
I scowled without looking back at her. Part of me wanted to say fine, to send her storming off, but I knew this was only going to get worse if I didn't address it now.  
"I'm composing my thoughts. Hold your damn horses."  
I didn't have to look to know she was making a show of her impatience.  
"I know I don't..." I started, then stalled out again. Why did this have to be so hard?  
"...I mean, I've probably never said this."  
Of course I'd never said it. She'd worked at my side for four years now, known my real identity for three, become a fixture in my home, my life. It was past time to voice it. She was right, of course, there was nothing I could do to change what I'd done, but I could at least be honest with her.  
"...but I do, I care about you." I swallowed. "I love you. and I'm sorry I behaved so badly."  
There. That wasn't so hard. Some of the tightness unclenched from my chest and I actually ventured to look her in the eye.  
"I want to make sure you understand that it will never happen again."  
A brief flash of hurt crossed her face and I backpedalled, fumbling to explain the reason for my vehimence.  
"B-because it was an inappropriate thing for me to do, given our relationship, and the difference in our ages. Not because...What I mean is... it isn't because I- It's not that you aren't...I-I-I..."  
"Yes?" She looked like she was enjoying making me squirm.  
"Look, if I was nineteen myself, I would be all over you," I blurted.  
Maybe there was such a thing as too honest. But her defensive front softened a little and she gave me a crooked little smile.  
"But I'm not," I forged on, "And I can't. And I need you to know that it isn't because you aren't desirable, because you are. You're just... it could never be right between us."  
She held my gaze, unflinching, solemn, through my whole bumbling monologue, and when the hell had she picked up that impassive poker face?  
"I understand, Bruce. I agree. It was one stupid mistake, not the beginning of something between us. And thanks for the compliment, but I knew this yesterday."  
She gave me a little grin.  
"Well, maybe not the if you were nineteen part," she added. Her smile disappeared as quickly as it appeared. "...but that doesn't really change anything. So can we just drop it?"  
I nodded, feeling like I had gotten off easy.  
"Fine. I just wanted to make sure you understood."  
"I do."  
"And that you were okay."  
"I am."  
She put on her helmet and kicked the kickstand back from her bike, then paused, foot on the starter, and flipped her visor up.  
"Are you?"  
"What?"  
"Are you okay?"  
Her dark eyes probed me. It wasn't the kind of thing I should have been talking about with her. But she was the only one who would ever know, and I needed to get it off my chest.  
"I don't know." I shook my head. "Before yesterday, I would have sworn under torture that I could never have... I mean, I never thought... It's not the kind of thing you like to find out about yourself. What you're capable of."  
"You're being too hard on yourself."  
She smiled, took her helmet back off.  
"But then that's nothing new."  
We both stared down at the flagstones of the driveway for a moment, unsure of what to do next.

"Bruce," she started nervously, looking up at me through her lashes, "You are aware that I seduced you, right?"  
"That's not true, you didn't..."  
"Please," she cut me off, "I initiated it. I was in the driver's seat. The only thing you did was provide the erection. Last time I checked, those are involuntary. I did the rest."  
"I didn't stop you."  
"No. You didn't. But failure to stop an attractive girl from seducing you when you haven't known the touch of a woman in months is hardly inexcusable."  
I shook my head.  
"It is when the attractive girl is someone you care about; someone who's half your age; someone who looks up to you."  
"I do look up to you. No less now than I did before. You drive me crazy sometimes, and it's been a long time since I had you on a pedestal. You're not perfect, and I don't expect you to be. You're a man, with complications and flaws, maybe more than most. I hate to see you agonizing about this." She stopped, swallowed visibly. Her voice got softer. She looked scared.  
"I'm sorry about yesterday. I made a very stupid mistake, but I'm not perfect either. And I hope you can forgive me." The last part was directed at her shoes, but I heard it clearly.  
"Barbara," I took a step closer to her but I didn't trust myself enough to touch her. "There's nothing to forgive. It wasn't your fault. I'm the grown-up, I should have put an end to it before we...before it ever got that far."  
She frowned and I could tell she was losing her temper.  
"I'm grown up enough. I knew what I was doing. I knew it was stupid. When I make a mistake, you always call me on it. Why won't you hold me accountable for this?"  
"Because I didn't want you to stop!" I blurted out again. It was like the words were escaping my mouth against my will.  
"...and I didn't want to stop you. I didn't want to stop. You don't know how close I was to carrying you off to my bed and fucking you 'til you couldn't walk."  
Her eyes were wide.  
"Oh."  
"Yeah. Oh." I agreed, grimly. Why the hell had I said that? I had gained some ground back, started to feel like we could patch things up, and then...  
"Well, that explains why you're freaking out a little."  
"Yeah."  
We stared at the ground for a long moment. I knew needed to tell her that I couldn't see her any more, not when we weren't working, maybe not even when we were.  
"Barbara-"  
"But that's just what you wanted to do, not what you did," she interrupted.  
I think she knew me too well, and knew what I was about to do.  
"And maybe it's understandable, given how much you deny yourself. You really need to get laid more often. I mean, really, really. It's not like there's a shortage of women who want to sleep with you."  
"Before yesterday I never once thought that anything like that could ever happen. Between us. Because... you know. I've known you half my life. And as far as I could tell, you never even noticed that I'd hit puberty, much less finished it. But I did worry about you not taking care of yourself. Much as I know you'd like it, I don't think you're cut out to be a monk. You need sex. You need to take care of your needs. Otherwise, this won't be the worst thing you'll end up regretting."

She was right.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why is it that when he is surrounded by gorgeous, eligible women, all he can think about is the one who is off limits?

 

Every year I dreaded the GCPD's Fire and Ice ball, but I was on the board of directors, so there was no way that I could dodge attending. This year I had at least forgone the potential awkwardness of a date and was hoping to slip out early. There was nothing on the criminal radar that night, though, and the bat signal was irritatingly silent just when I needed it most. I chastised myself for thinking that and tried to turn my attention back to the former mayor's extended monologue on the importance of social services support programs for at risk youth to permanently reduce the crime rate in the city.  
Even Grange had noticed my inattention.

"I'm sorry, Bruce, you must be terribly tired of my talking your ear off with all these lovely young ladies circling around hoping to get a moment of your time."  
"Not at all," I lied. "I couldn't agree more about the importance of reaching out to at risk youth early on." At least that part was true.

A stunning, dark-haired woman at the bar caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back. I knew I had been introduced to her as I came in but couldn't recall her name. I really did need to get out more, spend more time with women - women my own age. Maybe Barbara was right, what had happened between us was as simple as me denying myself for too long.

As if on cue, she materialized out of the crowd and sashayed up to Grange, raking me with her eyes. My heart jumped into my throat.  
"Marion! You aren't going to monopolize Bruce all night, are you?"  
"Miss St.Cloud. Bruce, you've met Silver before, haven't you?"  
I smiled. "It's been a while." I took her hand and her ice blue eyes pierced me. "Silver. How have you been?"  
"Oh, you know," she squeezed my hand and released, stepped in close to me, "the same."  
I cringed internally but didn't let it show. The last time I had seen her, she had returned my engagement ring. That had been five years ago. It had hurt, but I'd never wanted for her not to move on. I hoped that wasn't what she'd meant. She smiled, and it was dazzling.  
"It's good to see you, Bruce."  
Grange may as well have not been there. I don't remember, he may have already walked away.  
"It's good to see you too. You look the same. As beautiful as ever. What brings you back to town?"  
"Oh, work. I moved back six months ago. I kept hoping to run into you, but you don't get out as much as you used to."  
I reached out, cupped her chin.  
"You could have dropped by."  
She put her hand on my wrist. I noticed the engagement ring for the first time.  
"It's complicated."  
I nodded and let my hand drop away.  
"Isn't it always?"  
"Look, Bruce..."  
"He's a lucky man."  
"Bruce, I..." Those blue eyes still piercing into me. "I'm having doubts. I've never forgotten you."

Her words stabbed me with a pang of longing and an acute awareness of how lonely my life had been since she left. She did look the same. And for that moment, it felt like no time had passed. I had never been happier than when I was with her, and I'd never hurt anyone as much.  
I had been naive, I hadn't realized that I would have to choose between the bat and her. But I'd made my choice, and I'd make the same one again.

"And I've never forgotten you. I never could. I never will. But nothing's changed."  
 _I cringed internally - except that I'd already stooped to banging a nineteen year old I've known since she was a kid - I did not need to add an engaged former fiancee to that list._  
"It's good to see you. Hopefully I'll see you around."  
I turned and walked to the bar. She didn't follow.  
I indulged myself and ordered a double bourbon on the rocks, hoping the brunette that smiled at me would still be at the bar. I needed to get my mind off of everything.  
She wasn't there.

The night dragged on.

I wondered idly where Barbara had gotten herself to. She was supposed to be here. I'd been dreading seeing her, but now I'd have welcomed the distraction. And the company. I hadn't seen her all week, except while we were working. Barely, then. I knew with her between semesters, she couldn't have too much going on, but she hadn't stopped by the house at all. Which is what I wanted, I reminded myself, and what was for the best. But still, I missed her.

Jim Gordon was there, talking to the Mayor. He caught my eye and nodded. I nodded back. A blonde woman slipped in next to me at the bar. Not Silver.  
"Hello, Mr. Wayne."  
"Hello."  
I smiled politely. She was pretty.  
"Won't you join me and my friends for a drink?"  
"I'm sorry, no," I answered automatically. "I'm afraid I'm waiting for someone."  
"Lucky girl," I heard her remark as she walked away. I ordered another bourbon. I should have gone with her, let her seduce me. Forgotten about Silver. Forgotten about Barbara.

Dick was on the coast for the weekend with Ollie and Roy, Alfred was taking the night off. There was no reason I shouldn't take someone home tonight.

I downed the bourbon and turned to scan the room for other prospects, reminding myself that I was Gotham's most notorious playboy. I noticed Marcus Wild, the starting point guard for the Gators macking on a lithe, petite red head in a slinky green silk dress. I chose to ignore any similarities to Barbara and made my way over to them. So she was a petite red head, it didn't have to mean anything. At least for tonight.

"Marcus! So glad you made it out."  
He frowned slightly before grinning and gripping my hand and pulling me into an embrace. He had noticed my eyes on his companion as I crossed the room. We'd competed over women before. He was handsomer than I was, and had three inches on me. But I could have covered the entire Gators' payroll with the change in my pockets, and I had been in their locker room before. My cock was still bigger. I usually won.  
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"  
I turned my most self-effacing, boyish grin down to her and froze.  
"Bruce. Don't tell me you've forgotten me already."  
"I-"  
She looked every inch a woman. I guess I had never really seen her out of her usual jeans and t-shirt, or her Batgirl tunic. Except a week earlier, when I'd seen her out of... nearly everything. Not the image to conjure up. I stammered stupidly.  
"I-I-I-I... Barbara. I saw your father alone earlier. I-I thought you'd decided not to - not to come."  
Marcus smirked. "I take it you two have already met?"  
She smiled warmly at me and turned to Marcus.  
"Bruce and my father go way back. Bruce, you've outdone yourself as usual. I don't think I've ever seen the gala this well attended."  
"I-uh, ahem, that is...Selina Kyle. The new event planner. She did a marvelous job. I'm afraid I can't take any of the credit."  
"So," Wild segued, "I guess you're Comissioner Gordon's date." His eyes twinkled at Barb.  
"Yeah, Pop is kind of hopeless at finding his own. I've been his standing plus one at this thing for a long time."  
"Think he'd arrest me if I took you for a spin around the floor?"  
She smiled at him and blushed becomingly.  
"Well, Pop doesn't dance, so I don't think he could really object." She took his outstretched hand. "Mr. Wayne, always nice to see you."

Mr. Wayne? I gaped after her as she swirled onto the dance floor with Wild to the notes of a tasteful string ensemble. I tried to remind myself that she was still just barely nineteen. Maybe I should remind Marcus Wild, too, I thought as I noticed his hand slide down to the curve of her hip. She laughed at something he bent to murmur in her ear.

"Who is she?"  
Silver had slipped up behind me and was standing at my side. I managed not to jump.  
"No-no one. She's the daughter of a friend." Good, I thought, keep saying that. "Jim Gordon, the police commisioner."  
"She's radiant. I can see why you can't take your eyes off of her."  
"I- Silver, she's not..."  
"She's a lucky woman." Silver smiled wistfully.  
"She's just a girl," I reminded myself. "She's only nineteen. I've known her since she was a kid. I just don't like the way Marcus Wild is...he's got his hands all over her." Hypocrite. I forced myself to look away from the dance floor.  
Silver was studying me carefully. "Oh, I'm sorry. From the way you were looking at her, I thought - Never mind. Of course. I'll leave you to your protective hovering, then."  
She didn't look entirely convinced. I took a breath and tried to reign myself in, regain my composure, school my features to conceal whatever had overtaken me at seeing Barbara like this. I was overreacting anyways. She could do as she liked, and hold her own with Wild. I forced my attention back to Silver and grinned.  
"Was I that obvious?"  
"You looked downright murderous. But just a bit of womanly advice, she will not appreciate it if the Batman swoops in and tries to haul her date off to Arkham."  
He's not her date, I just managed to bite back.  
"Well that was a near miss, I was about to disappear into the shadows and do the whole bursting through the atrium ceiling thing. But I guess I could leave the glowering to her father if you provided me with an alternative. Dance?"  
"Sure. I'll take a couple turns around the floor, for old times sake."  
She wore black, a heavy satin column dress that whispered against her skin as I took her into my arms and out onto the floor.  
"You changed your perfume," I murmured, and she colored.  
"It was too heavy for down in Palmetto, with the heat and the humidity. Everyone wears floral or citrus."  
"Jasmine?" I asked. She nodded. "It's lovely."  
"I'm surprised you remembered," she whispered and I realized that I'd misstepped there. A man who was over her wouldn't have noticed.  
"Well, amateur detective and all," I grinned, "I wouldn't have survived this long without being observant."  
"I'm glad you have. Survived, I mean."  
We waltzed for a while in silence that hovered between awkward and companionable. I nearly lost my footing as we passed near Barbara and Marcus Wild. She laughed.

"So, tell me about your fiance."  
The mirth left her face.  
"He's wonderful."  
She ducked her head against my shoulder.  
"Glad to hear it. Does he have a name?"  
"You'll laugh," I heard her say.  
"I won't."  
"Ashley."  
I laughed. She slapped my chest.  
"I'm sorry, it's a very manly name. He is a man, isn't he?"  
"Yes, all six foot seven, 230 pounds of him."  
"Another bruiser. You do seem to have a type."  
"He played minor league ball after college. Now he owns a very successful commodities firm."  
"Sounds very suitable. He'll keep you in those fox furs you like so much. If it ever cools down enough to wear them."  
"It doesn't."  
"Well, I suppose if you've relocated here, you'll have an excuse to take them out of storage. Will the wedding be here in Gotham?"  
"No, in Palmetto. Ashley has family there."  
"And when is the happy day?"

"Bruce, don't."  
"Why not?"  
"I told you why."

We danced on in silence. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't... It was supposed to be ancient history. I was supposed to be over her, as much as I ever would be. Nothing had changed.

"You were right when you broke it off with me," I finally said. "I had no right to ask you to spend every night wondering if it would be the night I didn't come home."  
She sighed and laid her head against my shoulder.  
"And yet here you are, five years later, and looking none the worse for wear."  
"I've had some close calls. Nothing I would have wanted to put you through. I should be dead. I could be, tomorrow."

"I still love you."

It took every ounce of discipline I had to remain composed, and to keep dancing. Bane could have sucker-punched me and it would have thrown me less. I wanted to shove her away from me, I wanted to shout at her. I wanted to kiss her.  
It had been more than five years since I had seen her, five years since I had spoken to her, and now here she was, engaged to another man and telling me she still loved me.  
I'd rather face Bane. But she was the wronged party and it wasn't right for me to be angry.

"I'm sorry. I never wanted for you not to move on."  
She looked stung. Of course I still loved her too, I probably always would. But I didn't see how it would make anything better for either of us to say it. "I want you to have a happy life, I always have."  
"God, Bruce, when did you get so cold?"  
I wanted to argue with her, but I thought back to who I'd been when we were engaged, and I realized she was right. I was a different person now. And not a better one.  
"I'm sorry, Silver," I repeated. She didn't push me away, just nestled her cheek back against my chest and we finished the dance without speaking.

I was aching as I led her off of the dance floor when the quartet wound down.  
"It was good to see you again."  
She looked up at me as we stopped near the edge of the dance floor. I nearly said the hell with her fiancee and dragged her out of there and to the nearest hotel. There hadn't been anyone like her, who I'd loved, who I'd trusted, who I'd really let in, since she walked away. I missed it, missed having a woman in my life who was strong and smart and who I could count on.

Except there was Barbara.  
I shook my head, slightly, to get that image out.

But I was not going to allow myself to ruin Silver's life just so I could entertain the fragile fantasy that we could make it work, this time, somehow.  
"It was good to see you too," I lied, and bent to kiss her softly. "I wish you the best, I really do."  
"Thank you." Her eyes were moist. "Take care of yourself, Bruce. You're doing great work. I'm so proud."  
I watched her walk away, into the crowd of black tie socialites, my only-sort-of natural milleu.

I turned to covertly survey the dance floor and was happy to see Jim Gordon glaring across the room at where Marcus Wild was bent intimately over Barbara.

Jim stopped Gabe Marquez, one of the homicide detectives, as he passed, and spoke a few words in his ear. Marquez circled the floor and neatly extracted her from Wild's clutches and back out onto the dance floor. The string ensemble was playing something faster now, a tango. It was an improvement from Wild, but I still had to turn away to prevent myself from staring resentfully at him. He was boyish and slight-framed and light on his feet and I heard Barb laughing as they whirled past. I had only met him a few times since he had started at homicide. He was quiet, almost shy, and had let his veteran partner do the talking. But now Barbara let out a whoop of laughter as he swooped her into a low dip.

I never knew she could tango.

Barbara's hair flared in the soft light and flashes of her toned thigh showed at the high slit of her silk dress. She and Marquez moved like they had been partnered for years, and his shyness was stripped away on the floor. Or maybe it was just her, putting him at ease. She had that effect on people. A few people turned to look at them and I heard a pair of older ladies near me cooing over what a handsome couple they made. They did, but it didn't stop my jaw from clenching.

I didn't want to examine too closely why I was reacting this way.  
I just wanted to stop.

I took a deep breath and forced myself myself to turn back and look at her as I skirted the dance floor. She was a beautiful, vibrant young woman, and that was okay. Maybe she wasn't a child anymore, but it didn't make her any less off limits to me. She trusted me and connected with me in ways that none of the men who were eying her like a conquest ever would, and nothing was worth putting that in jeopardy.

Any more than I already had.

I made my way over to speak to her father. I was supposed to say a few words prior to introducing the current mayor, and he would know when and where I was needed.

~~ * ~~

I'm not sure how I ended up sitting next to her at the side of the podium as the mayor gave his address. I don't think she had been expecting to be there any more than I had, but having her there had distroyed what little remained of my composure. I stammered through my remarks as though the English language was no longer at my command. This must be how Kent feels all the time, I thought, and felt a surge of empathy for him. Jim Gordon had met my eyes intently as I returned to my seat, and for a single panicked moment I was convinced that he, and everyone there could see what I had done to his daughter plainly written on my face.

When I finished my mercifully brief introduction, the only seat left available was between Barb and her father. I eased myself into it gingerly, trying to wedge myself into the narrow space without touching either of them and failing. Her shoulder was pressed lightly against my arm. I concentrated on keeping my focus on Mayor Hill, but she was too close for me to escape her scent.  
  
She smelled like a rainy spring night.

Had she always smelled like this?

For the life of me, I couldn't remember noticing her scent at all prior to last week. Just like I had never noticed the soft wisps of downy auburn hair that escaped from her polished updo, or the delicate fluttering of her pulse in the curve of her throat. And I would not notice her breasts, would not admire how they swelled against the bodice of her dress, I would not be hypnotized by the green crystal pendant that lay between them. I would not think about how soft and delicious they had been in my mouth.

I absolutely could not be this close to her when she was dressed this way.

She looked up at me and noticed I was watching her. She smiled.  
I leaned in closer and whispered, "I didn't know you could dance." Stupid thing to say. She flushed a little.  
"I'm full of surprises."

Everything I thought to reply seemed creepy and salacious, so I just quirked a grin at her and turned my attention back to the mayor. Or I tried. I repeated each of his sentences back in my head, trying to make sense of them. I looked at him, at the rest of the audience, at Gordon. I did not look at her, not even remotely in her direction.

It was Barbara.

She was still a girl, and she was my student and my partner. This could not continue.

I crossed my legs to shield my erection. My ears burned. I tried to will my cock back down. I could swear that the slim antique watch Alfred had picked out for the evening began to tick slower on my wrist. I could't remember a longer forty minutes in my recent history.

Standing to applaud each speaker was particularly awkward, although the first time I stood, I insisted that Barbara switch to the seat next to her father before we sat down again. It didn't help much, she was still pressed against my side. The offbeat rhythm of her breath, the heat of her flesh surging against me as she squirmed to relieve the boredom and discomfort of sitting on display to the entire crowd, it occupied my senses completely. I tried to marshall the meditative techniques I relied on to reset my focus, but it was a slow and fruitless process. I could not turn my mind from the intoxication I felt at her presence.

After an awkward and interminable stretch, it was over.

Throngs of people crushed up to the podium to speak with various dignitaries. I was particularly popular. I was usually quite good at deflecting the more volluble social climbers while still coming off as charming and cordial, but that night, a zombie could have out-conversed me. My monosyllabism only seemed to encourage most of my admirers, and the knot of people around me was particularly slow to thin.  
"Ah," I repeated again, "yes, I see. Mm-hmm."  
I was still painfully aware Barbara, who stayed at her father's side as they made their way off the stage.  
In the periphery of my vision, I noticed a handsome young man give her a transparently lascivious look and make his way over to her. Jim had stopped to talk to one of his Captains, and the kid made his move. There were a dozen conversations going on closer to me, but his voice still reached me.

"Haven't seen you around. Hey, I'm, uh, Sterling Wagner."  
Leading man looks, panty wetting smile. He thrust his hand out at her. She took it.  
"Yeah, I know."

He was the second son of Richmond Wagner, the Wagner Chemicals magnate. Only twenty-two, but he already had a rep as a party boy, like the male equivalent of Paris Hilton.

"Then you have me at an advantage."  
"That I do."  
"So you are...?"  
"Charmed, I'm sure."

He still held her hand. I was trying not to stare. "Mm-hmm," I repeated to the man who's name I'd already forgotten. He didn't seem to care that I wasn't listening.

"Come on, don't make me beg," Wagner pouted, and his eyes sparkled mischievously. If she was trying to reel him in, she was on the right track. She quirked an eyebrow at him.  
"Something tells me you're interested in something other than my...name."  
"You caught me."  
"Well, I can appreciate honesty, I guess. Barbara Gordon. Nice to meet you."  
She extricated her hand from his grasp.  
"The pleasure is mine, I'm sure." He leant in closer to her, propping an elbow on the pillar she was pressed against. I kind of wanted to hit him.

"So how did you end up stuck in the land of the living dead tonight?"  
"Same way as you, I expect. Paternal obligations. Although, I'm happy to get to spend a night with my pops."  
"Ahh. Relief. I saw you sitting up by the podium and I thought you might be here with Evil Otto himself."  
She looked at him questioningly and he tossed his head in my direction. She snickered.  
"Evil Otto, huh? That's a new one. Anyways, Bruce is a sweetheart."  
"Whatever."

I really wanted to hit him.

"So which towering multinational does your 'pop' pilot?"  
"No corp, just the cops."  
"Ah."

I could practically see the words 'fresh meat' scroll behind his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm poor."  
"Hey, makes no difference to me. You wanna maybe sneak out of here later, head somewhere a little more lively? I'm meeting some friends at Bliss after twelve. You strike me as a nocturnal kinda girl."  
"You have no idea," she drawled. I couldn't contain my snort of amusement. The man accosting me, having just finished a bon mot, looked encouraged.  
"You know what, I really can't tonight, but totally give me your number."

I could see the full stop cross his face like a record scratch.

"Uh... I don't generally give out my personal number."  
She shrugged.  
"Okay."

I could see him trying to figure out what her game was as she turned away.  
"Wait! Why don't you give me your number?"  
Another shrug. "Sure. But I guarantee you'll have to call at least a dozen times before you catch me on a free night." She snuggled up to him and tugged at his tie. I smirked.  
"I'll bet you'll lose interest before then. So, you know, if you want to see me again, giving me your number is pretty much your only shot. I promise to call you the next time I need a wild night out on the town." She gave him a coquettish little smile. "Did I mention I'm a gymnast?"

He goggled at her.

"Um. You have your phone with you?"  
"Yuppers."  
She tugged her sparkly clutch from Jim's distracted grasp and handed her phone to Wagner. She had to help him program his number in.  
"I've always got that one with me. Don't call before one, though."  
She laughed.  
"Obviously. Who's together that early in the day? Now give me your phone, and I'll do yours."

I hadn't given her many chances to work undercover, but she had the vacuous party girl schtick down cold. She whispered something as she handed back his phone, then sashayed off to the bar.  
"Oh yeah," I heard him mutter as he walked past. "Definitely going to call her."

The bar seemed like a very good idea.

I was fairly rude to the pompous windbag as I extricated myself from his clutches.

I slipped in next to Barbara and ordered another bourbon. Stupid thing to do, I was having enough trouble controlling myself already.  
While I waited for my drink, I broke protocol and spoke to her, far more familiarly than Bruce Wayne would have to Barbara Gordon in the known universe.  
"That thing with Wagner was-" adorable, I almost said, but I checked myself in time, "-very well played."  
I couldn't stop my amusement from coming through in my voice.  
"What?" She grinned. "Not everyone has an automatic backstage pass into every show in town by virtue of her name alone. I might need to get into a VIP room some day. You know, for work."  
She was adorable. She was a contagiously fun flirt. She was completely off-limits.  
"Of course. I never doubted it for a second."  
I wanted to flirt with her some more.  
We were already getting some curious looks from the other people at the bar. It was probably for the best that when she got her club soda, she walked away without another word to me.

The night started looking up after that. Barbara was having fun, and I could too. The bourbon relaxed me some, and there was no shortage of attractive, flirtatious women around, all of them fair game and entirely in character for Bruce Wayne, playboy bachelor, to surround himself with.  
I nearly forgot that Barbara was there, until a couple hours later.

  
It wasn't intentional. It wasn't premeditated. The same windbag had buttonholed me on a return from the bathroom. This time, he wasn't taking any of my not so subtle hints that I wanted to move on. I reached into my jacket and discretely hit the combo of buttons on my phone that would trigger a Wayne Enterprises 'emergency' call that would allow me to unequivocally make my escape and disappear for the evening.

As I excused myself and turned away, I glanced over the screen of my phone and saw Barbara watching me with interest. Instead of pocketing my phone casually and returning through the thick of the party, I gave her a significant look and returned to scrutinize the screen and tap through it as if I was accessing some of the deeper, covert areas of the interface. I met her eyes again and gave the slightest inclination of my head towards a pair of double doors at the farthest corner of the ballroom. I turned and walked briskly towards them.

I'm not sure why I did it except that I knew that she would follow. I just wanted to speak to her somewhere that I didn't have to pretend to barely know her. I just wanted to see her alone.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully Silver St. Cloud and Sterling Wagner are not too intrusive. I don't plan to do anything more with them, but I may insert incidental OCs from time to time as the source show wasn't exactly bursting with non-villianous side characters for me to re-purpose. You have been warned.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for rough sex, semi-public sex, mildly dubious consent

 

She came trotting up to me as quickly as her gown and her shoes would allow.  
"Barbara. I've been trying to get a moment with you all evening."  
"What's up? We got an incoming situation? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I'm not exactly dressed to throw down."  
She looked up at me expectantly, eyes shining in the dark hallway, and words failed me; control failed me; reason failed me.

I gripped her shoulders and my mouth crashed down over hers.

She gasped and I plundered her mouth, pulling her tight against me, pressing my tongue into her slack, startled mouth - her sweet little mouth, God, her hot, sweet little mouth! And the scent of her, the curves of her firm body under the warm silk of her dress; Her soft, perfect breasts, crushed hotly agaist my chest.  
Marcus Wild had had his hands on her, and Sterling Wagner, and that detective from major case. Every man there had noticed her.  
"Are you trying to drive me crazy?" I gasped, not knowing where the hell it came from.  
"Bruce, I don't--"  
She looked up at me, stung and confused, and I knew that it was all in my head. She was the same as she had always been. I was losing my mind.

I just meant to bring her down here so I could talk to her, but now I was kissing her, and touching her, and I knew that I wasn't going to stop until I'd had her again.

It was seeing her, here tonight. I saw her as a woman, for the very first time, and not a kid. And I didn't know if I'd ever be able to see her any other way. There were all those men, circling around her. I wanted to protect her - and I was jealous. She was mine, she was my girl. They couldn't have her. But I couldn't fight for her. I couldn't touch her. Ever again. I couldn't.

Still, I walked her backwards to the nearest wall, hemmed her in with my body, wrapped my hand around the back of her slender neck. I whimpered against her mouth. I was burning then, burning for her - hot and bright and uncontained. This could not happen, I knew I had to stop, but I didn't know how. I had to taste her everywhere, I was kissing her neck, her jaw, her chin. I took her earlobe between my teeth and nipped, then sucked until she whimpered too. She smelled like rain and the night air and the tang of fresh sweat.

"Fuck..." I breathed, hot and urgent. When I went back to kiss her again, she'd picked up my urgency. She kissed me back, fiercely, and what ever was left of my resistance shattered. We made out like it was the end of the world, panting, pawing, gasping. Her flesh was warm and soft and firm and perfect, and I pressed her little body tight against me. The voices of the guests at the party and the catering staff filtered down the hallway, but I didn't care.

"Barbara," I pled hoarsely, "Baby, I need you."

  
~*~

  
I don't know why, but I almost fainted when he said it. I was not the swooning type, but I can't think of a better way to describe it.  
My knees buckled, my panties soaked through in a wet rush, my skin electrified, and my head swam. His hands were everywhere, palming my breasts, trailing his fingertips down my arms, squeezing my ass, sliding down the backs of my thighs. He was practically dry humping me at the end of a darkened hallway, my father and half of Gotham only a few steps away. And I was letting him. Anyone could see us. I couldn't believe he was doing this. It was making me so incredibly hot.

I hadn't done anything like this since Kevin Buerland at the ninth grade homecoming dance, a frantic, inept groping session, only not so inept, because even when he'd lost his mind, Bruce still knew exactly what the hell he was doing. And just then, he was slipping his fingers under the apex of the slit in my skirt, bunching it up so that he could get his hand between my thighs. He skimmed his fingers between my legs, over my panties and my legs went coltish and uncooperative underneath me.

I could taste a hint of bourbon on his breath, but he didn't seem drunk, exactly. But it was definitely out of character for him to be doing what he was doing. Or maybe it wasn't, maybe this was par for the course for playboy Bruce, Gotham's most notorious bachelor. I just never thought I would meet this side of him up close and personal. I needed to stop him before he did something that neither of us could take back. I was not one of those girls. I had worked too hard to get him to trust and respect me to let him shut me out over a drunken mistake.

Then he slipped two fingers under my thong and sunk them into me, and I stopped caring.

He had his arm around my waist and he was lifting me against him and stumbling a little as he strode with me.  
"What...?" I started to ask, but he was opening a door and dragging me into the boiler room, and I got it. He was going to fuck me. Right then, right there.

This was more than I know how to do, this was new to me, this devouring, all-encompassing lust. I wasn't even sure that it was something I wanted to do, but I couldn't stop, and I knew instinctively that he couldn't either, that there was nothing to do but ride this out to the end.

If last the fallout from last Saturday was bad, I didn't want to think what this would bring.

We were in the dark, enclosed space, tugging at eachother's clothes. He shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket, I pulled his bow tie until it came loose and started working on the buttons down the front of his shirt. My hands were shaking and I was having trouble with them. He took one of my hands and brought it down to the front of his pants. I rubbed him eagerly through the soft, fine wool of his trousers. He moaned. His cock was thick and hot and I could feel him getting harder under my fingers. There was a zzzzzzzzttt when he found my zipper and he lifted my dress over my head. I stood in front of him in the dim light filtering under the door in heels, stockings, a thong, and my strapless bra feeling uncertain and disoriented.

His eyes burned into me from the darkness.

"You're so fucking beautiful. God help me, I want you."

He had clearly lost his mind. I was not the kind of woman that men - well, a few men had told me I was beautiful before, and that they wanted me - but not men like Bruce. He was so far out of my league.

"Bruce, I don't..."  
"Shhh," he whispered. He closed the gap between us and kissed me again, bringing my hand back to his hard cock, "Touch me."  
He opened the front of his pants deftly with one hand and pulled out his cock so I could wrap my fingers around it. I did and he made a grunting noise and thrust a little against my palm. I squeezed him harder.  
"God!" We both gasped it at once. He was hot and hard in my palm and I could feel him throb in time with my pulse.  
This was crazy.  
This was wrong.  
He surged forward a step, so he was pressed tight against me, and I was pinned against the wall. Then he was lifting me and I was wrapping my legs around his waist and I was ready to go, I wanted him inside me, but he kept lifting higher, until my shoulders were even with his forhead and I had to let go of his cock and hold on to his shoulders for support. He dropped his head and pressed his face between my breasts. He freed a hand and jerked my bra down, his lips grappling my skin until he found a nipple to latch on to.  
He was wild and ravenous and seemed determined to consume my breasts, flitting between one and the other, licking and slurping and nipping, and sucking long and hard on my nipples. They swelled and elongated in his mouth, tight and hard, sending jolts down my body to my sex.  
"Fucking perfect, delicious, edible little tits... God, Barbara," he raised his head to pant against my shoulder. "All night. They've been driving me crazy all night."

I could feel his free arm jerking rhythmically beneath me and I realized he was jacking himself off while he sucked on my nipples.

"Fuck me," I pled, and my thighs trembled against his flanks.

He unbuttoned the rest of the buttons on his shirt and got the shirt tails out of the way. He took hold of the side seam of my thong and tugged it roughly until it snapped and then he was surging up me and letting me slide down his body and then he was in me, as far as he could go, in one rough thrust.

We both froze for a moment at the shock of being so deeply and suddenly joined, and then he was thrusting into me, hard and fast, slamming me against the concrete wall, a low grunt forced from his lips each time he drove into me.

"Hunh! Huh! Hunh!"

This was not the Bruce or the Batman that I knew, he was behaving like a barbarian. He'd lost his famous control, and it made me giddy to know that I was the cause of it, even if I couldn't fathom how. He was brutal and feral, and it was electrifying. Every thrust of his hips, every squeeze of his palms, every ragged breath sent white hot bolts of pleasure and adrenaline shooting through my body.

I keened unintelligibly and clung to him, letting his body engulf me, his cock pound into me, letting him take me. I squeezed him with my thighs and gripped his suspenders, feeling the muscles of his shoulders flexing under my hands.

I could feel him struggling to slow down, to reign himself in, and that wasn't what I wanted.

"Harder," I panted, "Faster."

He was still fighting it, still trying to master whatever beast had awakened in him.

"I can't...I can't...I'm not...I'm gonna..." he stammered.  
Oh. He was close. And that shouldn't have been a turn on, but shouldn't was firmly behind the wheel right then and it just made me feel powerful and sexual and suddenly orgasmic.

I gripped him tighter and met his thrusts franticaly with my own.  
"Do it, fuck me, fuck me, yeah," I hissed. "I'm so close, harder, please, oh God, oh FUCK!"

I shouldn't have screamed, but I couldn't help it. I wailed. I keened. I clawed blindly at his back. Way too late, I remembered that we were in the middle of a large public event and tried to temper my volume, but it didn't work. I ended up sinking my teeth into his shoulder to muffle my screams, too gone to really care about the repercussions.

I only numbly registered when his whole body arched, and he pumped shakily into me a few more times before coming with a long, trembling groan.

I wanted to sob. I wanted to laugh hysterically. I did neither, just clung to him.  
"Oh my God," I whispered against his neck. That was new.

~*~

 

I couldn't help it.  
I couldn't hold it back.  
I came when she came, like it was my first time and I won't flatter myself, I would have come before her if she hadn't been so incredibly responsive.

I shook. I panted. I clung to her. I tried to regain control of my body.  
But it still had me by the throat, whatever "it" was.

I wish I could say that I was possessed, that I could place the blame on something else - the Bourbon, seeing Silver again, Hell, I would have settled for one of Hugo Strange's schemes. But it wasn't any of that.

It was me.

It was some part of me that I'd always known was there, something old and feral and atavistic.  
I felt it every day.

Rage.

It had just never come to the surface when I wasn't wearing the cowl. It had remained uninvolved and uninterested in my sex life, in my life as Bruce Wayne period. Maybe it was the jealousy that brought it to the surface, the anger I felt to see her being pursued by other men.

She was mine.  
I wanted to rip the heads off of every man who had looked at her with my bare hands.  
I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and drag her off to a cave.  
I wanted to fuck her until I collapsed from exhaustion, I wanted to put my babies in her belly, I wanted to sleep for eternity curled around her hot, naked flesh.

She was mine. Mine.

Normally, I could control the rage, I could keep it leashed, but right then it was firmly in the driver's seat. It had found a weakness in my defenses, a place I had never thought to fortify, and I was swamped. All that tightly bottled fury, that feral energy I'd been surpressing, and I was pouring it into her.

Once hadn't been enough.

I was still hard, still aching and twitching inside her although I had managed to still my hips. I wrapped my arms around her and pressed her possessively to my chest. She had screamed, loud enough to draw attention from the party outside, or at least the caterer's station. I knew I needed to stop, needed to get her dressed and try to sneak us out of there before we were caught. Her name, her face, the details... if they got out, I didn't have the power to pull them back. I had to stop, if I had any consideration for her, if I had any decency left.

Aparently I did not.

My grip on her tightened at the thought of relinquishing the pleasures of her flesh. Just one more time. One more time to come inside her before I had to go out and face the fallout.

I felt helpless and reckless and impulsive, and she felt so good, all soft and firm and silken. The scent of her, warmed with sweat and sex now, was intoxicating. She was a drug. She was my destruction, although I couldn't imagine then how low I would sink. I couldn't imagine there was lower than this.

"Barbara."  
I buried my nose in her hair.  
 _I'm sorry_ , I tried to say; _I can't stop. Please help me._

Instead, all I managed was "You smell good,"  
My voice low and rough, barely a whisper. She tightened her legs around my hips and her pussy spasmed on my cock, an aftershock, but it made my eyes roll back in my head.

She'd lost one of her shoes in the throes of her climax, and this knocked the other one loose. It fell to the floor with soft clop.

I could feel her pulse pounding through my skin, feel her hot breath on my chest.  
I grunted and began to thrust again, slowly, spreading her thighs wider.  
"Fuck."

Just one more time.

It was quiet and close in the boiler room, heady with the scent of sex and the sound of ragged breathing and slapping flesh. I pressed my face into her neck and lapped at the salty, tender bits of her throat, over her pulsing carotid artery and up to the little hollow behind her jaw. She raked her fingers through my hair and dug her nails into my scalp, holding me there, so I nipped the flesh, scraped my teeth against it.

Her cunt was sweet and ripe and so tight it hurt, but it was a good ache, the kind that provided slow fuel for the frenzy that was driving me. I cradled her bare hips in my hands and drove into her as far and as hard as I could.  
Out. In. Out. In. Slick. Hot. Tight. Perfect.

The last of my resistance gave way and I surrendered to the biological simplicity of joining, of mating. I would purge this impulse. I would take what I wanted. She didn't exactly seem averse to it either, her hands wormed under my shirt to claw restlessly at the muscles of my back. She gnawed lightly at my collar bone and whimpered, but I wasn't going to stop to find out if they were whimpers of pleasure or pain.

I continued on at a steady pace for I don't know how long. Inevitably, voices approached down the hall. I didn't register them at first but then there was a male voice, very close.

"Where was it coming from?"

"I don't know. Down here somewhere." This one female. "The boiler room, maybe?"

We were about a meter from the door. I didn't stop thrusting, even as the footsteps approached. I could tell when Barbara heard them, her body going rigid, her breath caught in her throat.  
I stilled inside her. She squirmed against me, trying to raise herself enough to dismount my cock.

"No. No. Shhh. Hold still."  
I wrapped an arm around her and held her tight against my chest.  
"Bruce! Bruce, I can't... we have to..."  
She thrashed in my arms, trying to gain purchase on my shoulders.  
"Shh," I soothed, "Hold still."  
"Easy for you to say, you're not naked."

_No, I'm only balls deep inside the police comissioner's nineteen year old daughter._

"It's okay."  
"It's not o-"  
"Shh."

I covered her mouth with mine, hard, and kissed her until she went slack in my arms. For a moment, I forgot why I was trying to silence her and got lost in it. When the boiler room door handle began to turn, I slammed back to reality. I closed the distance to the door with out losing my hold on her at all, and wedged my foot firmly against it. I could feel who ever was on the other side testing the knob again and then attempting to push the door open. It didn't budge, but it must have been obvious someone was holding it shut.

"Look, who ever is in there, I don't know what the hell you think you're doing. I should not need to tell you that this is completely inappropriate. This is a black tie fund-raiser for the GCPD, for Christ's sake, not some seedy after-hours club in the Narrows."

It was beyond sick that the prospect of getting caught was making me even harder. It was definitely not having the same affect on Barbara. She clung to me, shaking, her face buried against my chest. I could feel her heart hammering. On the other side of the door, the man spoke again.  
"I don't think I'm going to have much difficulty finding someone to arrest you for lewd conduct and indecent exposure."  
He released his pressure on the door. I slid my foot away and reached for the handle.

"Bruce! What are you doing?" she hissed.  
"Shhh. Trust me." I turned the knob. "Just keep your face turned away from the door."  
"No! Let me go."

She fought against my grip actively then, and I released her to drop back to the floor and clamour back deeper into the dark recesses of the room. My cock throbbed at the loss.  
"Don't worry," I whispered, tugging up my jockeys and closing my pants enough that I was semi-decent. I opened the door a foot, and looked out at the man who had spoken. He recognized me instantly.

"M-M-Mr. Wayne."  
I glared coldly at him. He sputtered and stammered nervously, a doughy middle-aged man with a receding hair line. As he stammered, his eyes dropped from my face, down along the exposed flesh of my chest to the straining outline of my erection. My eyes narrowed. He looked down at the floor, then away, down the corridor.  
"See that we're not disturbed again," I growled, moving to push the door closed with my foot. "And clear the hallway."

I was not expecting him to shoot out his own foot and block the door. He met my eyes with a combination of fear and defiance. I scowled.  
"I-I will. But not until I'm sure the girl is okay."  
I stared at him incredulously. He was a brave man.  
"You don't have a daughter, do you, Mr. Wayne?"  
I shook my head.  
"Fine. Ask her yourself."  
"M-Ma'am? Are you alright?" He peered past me into the darkness and I increased my pressure on the door. He did not need to see her to confirm she was alright.  
She didn't answer for a moment, and when she did, it was a soft squeak.  
"I'm okay. Really embarrassed, but okay. Thanks."

"Did you want me to escort Mr. Wayne back to the party?" he asked. He didn't have a shot at making me do this, but I could see in his face he meant to try if she said yes.  
"N-no, I... I want him to stay. If you could just do like he asked and make sure no one else finds out?"  
I gave him an expectant look. He met my eyes with a flare of unmistakable disgust, then nodded curtly and turned away. I shut the door and let my eyes re-adjust to the darkness. A knot of churning shame roiled in my belly, but I pushed it down. Despite the perfect opening to stop this madness, I still wanted her.

"Where'd you scamper off to?"  
I listened for signs of her.  
"Looking for our clothes," she muttered, and as my sight adapted, I made out her pale form near the hulking grotesque of the inactive boiler.  
"Leave them."  
I reached out to cup one of her small, firm breasts. I stroked her nipple with my thumb. She gasped. I pulled her body against mine, revelling in the heat of it. Her heart was still hammering.

"Bruce, we have to get dressed. We have to get out of here before everyone at the party finds out we were... knocking boots in here."  
"I'm not done with you," I growled in her ear, dropping my head to nip at her neck.  
"Bruce..."  
"He'll do what I told him to, no one else has to find out."  
"My dad will kill me."  
A teasing reluctance in her voice now.  
I bit lightly at her chin and ghosted kisses along her jawline.  
"He'll kill _me_. This is my fault, he won't blame you."  
My hands slid down around her back to cup her ass. I ground my erection against her.  
"Yeah, but he still thinks I'm a virgin."

I couldn't hold back my chuckle. She answered with a rueful little laugh.

"Let me come inside you again."  
I didn't recognize how desperate I sounded. I continued to caress her, stroke her, anything I could think of that might break through her resistance and make her say yes.  
"Bruce, I... fuck it."

She tugged down my zipper and reached inside my shorts to grip my cock.  
"Yesss," I moaned and squeezed my eyes shut. She pushed my shorts down and pumped my cock in her fist, then released my cock to palm and squeeze my balls. A week ago, I had thought she was a virgin, too. It maddened me to think of how she had learned to touch a man's body, I couldn't stand to wonder who had taught her this.

I had to get my cock inside her again, I needed to take possession of her.

I uncupped one of her buttocks and slipped my fingers between her thighs to gauge her readiness for me. She was still sopping wet, hot and swollen, even her inner thighs slick and slippery. I groaned in helpless arousal. She agitated herself against my fingers. That was enough for me. I plucked her off her feet and drove into her, hard.

She grunted. I waited for her to lever her legs up and wrap them around my hips and then I started fucking her, hard and ruthless. Mine, mine, mine! I chanted silently, refusing to analyze it or to resist it. I reached up to steady myself with one of the intake pipes of the boiler. I covered her mouth with mine, swallowing her little gasps and pants, so the only sound was the slick, wet friction of my cock churning inside her. She clutched my shoulders. I growled and bruised her lips with mine, fucking her mouth with my tongue in the same rhythm as my bucking hips. She jerked her head away, finally, to catch her breath, and I let her rest her forehead against my neck.

I had never fucked standing up like this before, and it was taxing, even with Barbara's tiny size, but I couldn't be bothered to stop to find a flat surface to put her down on. I couldn't stand the thought of her that far away from me.

"God, you make me crazy," I snarled in her ear. "Never wanted anything like I want your sweet, hot, perfect little fucking cunt."  
It exhilerated me as much as it horrified me, things I'd never dreamt of saying in my life, tumbling from my lips without a censor.

It worked like stoking a fire. She blazed in my arms, burning as hot as the silent boiler next to us would have, breath quickening, limbs tightening, biting her lip and keening softly against my shoulder.

I clapped my hand over her mouth barely a second before she screamed. She sunk her teeth into my palm and let go, her pussy spasming on my cock. I held her tighter and kept pounding her. The wet rush of her orgasm splattered on the concrete floor beneath us. My hand was still hard over her mouth and she was fighting to suck in breath, but it only seemed to make her climax more intense, her whole body trembling violently as her vaginal muscles undulated and clamped down on me. Finally her eyes started to go wild and panicked and I let her go. She dropped her head to my shoulder, panting, and kept riding my hips as the trembling began to subside. I knew she must be getting raw from my rough treatment but I was too far gone to care. I spun us around and pressed her into the boiler, my own legs beginning to shake as my climax neared. The fevered heat burning in my belly suffused my whole body. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit at the insides of my cheeks to keep from shouting. I drove into her, again, again, again, and then it broke loose and spiralled up from my pelvic floor, a raw, animal thing that left me on my knees, struggling to stay conscious.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

I did not want to let her go.  
I knew it was past time to end this, but I still clung to her. 

"We should get dressed."

Reluctantly, I unwound my arms from around her and let her raise herself up, off of my lap, and my softening cock.  
"There must be a light in here. I can hardly see anything."  
She stumbled towards the door and groped around for a minute before finding it. I turned my head when she found it, and instantly regretted it. She was naked, save for stockings and the mauled and twisted strapless bra still caught around her waist, her firm flesh sheened with sweat, her face flushed, wild strands of auburn hair escaped from her carefully styled hair to swirl around her face and neck. 

Her body was a long familiar thing to me, I knew how much weight it could bear, the speed it could generate, the enviable flexibility of her thighs, that her vertical leap had lost a few inches since she started college. It was a tool, one that I worried over and admired in equal parts, but it had never been more than that. Until last Saturday morning, when it finally broke through my preoccupation with performance and skill that it was a woman's body, not only that, but one that I found incredibly appealing. Her body kindled a desire in me that I hadn't been, I wasn't prepared for. She was so small.

She was so young.  
She was so beautiful.

I realized I was discomfitting her with my scrutiny and turned away.

"So," she started awkwardly.  
"So."  
"I'm sorry I got so loud. It kind of... took me by surprise, I guess. I was so... out of control."  
"Yeah, me too. Again. I-I don't know what came over me."  
She snorted in amusement.  
"You just keep setting me up for that one."

I stood up then, still with my back to her, and righted my underwear and zipped and buttoned my trousers. I chanced a look back at her. She had straightened her stockings and bra and was steadying herself on the door frame as she wiggled back into her high heeled shoes. I turned away quickly, blushing. She had a lovely bottom.

"So."  
I started when she spoke again. I had to concentrate to shake the image of me worshipping her ass with hands and mouth from my head.

"Not getting busted. We should start working on that. Do you know where my panties ended up?"  
"I... I, um, I ripped them. I don't think you'll be able to wear them again. Sorry."  
"I remember. But I could still use them to wipe up. I'm all wet and sticky."  
"Here."

I strode to the mop sink where I had draped my jacket, and pulled out my white pocket square. I held it back for her without turning around, but our fingers brushed as she took it. The contact sent a hot shock through me.  
Barbara.  
My stomach flipped and I gripped the rim of the sink.  
How did it come to this? How did everything change so fast?

"Barbara, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have. This was a mistake."  
"You think?"

I couldn't tell if she was angry, or if this was her usual snarky demeanor.

"I-I didn't... I... This is all my fault."  
"Really not disagreeing with you this time." I heard the the whispered swish of the silk as she stepped back into her dress.  
"But can we save the angsty self-recrimination for later and concentrate on how we are going to get out of here without getting caught? ...Y'know, any more than we already have been. I so don't want my dad finding out that I'm the kind of girl that will get freaky in a broom closet in the middle of the department's most important fundraiser. With their biggest donor."  
She giggled.  
"Although you can't say I won't take one for the team."

She thought..?

"Barb, I hope you don't think I-"  
"Joke, Bruce," she cut me off. "I don't get much opportunity to make the dirty ones. Not around you anyways. Hence the snickering."  
"Ah."

Silence filled the room. I fumbled the buttons of my shirt closed and tucked in the tails.

"Could you, um...could you help me with my zipper?"

I gasped when I turned. Her back was bared to me and there was an ugly bruise blossoming below her shoulder blades.  
"What?" she asked.  
"I-I bruised you."  
"Shit. Is it going to show?"  
I drew the zipper the rest of the way up and her dress hid all but the very upper edge of the discoloration.  
"Not-not really. I can't really see it." 

But I could, even if it was covered now. I had done that to her. I had hurt her.

"Barbara..."  
I didn't know what to say.  
"This is going to work out better if I go out first. Nobody's going to be surprised that Bruce Wayne slipped off to have a-a..."  
An assignation?  
A quickie?  
A rough, savage fuck up against a cinder block wall with a girl half his size and age?  
"...I should be able to protect you, make sure the hallway is clear of any gawkers or inquisitive media. Wait until it's quiet and you should be able to slip out undetected. Your father will never have to know. Just be careful."  
"I'll have to hit a powder room. I don't want to imagine what my hair looks like."  
"There's one around the corner at the end of this hall. You can get back into the ballroom from there."  
"Okay. Maybe we can pull this off."

She smoothed her hair self consciously.  
"How bad does it look?"  
I smiled, in spite of everything, because I'd never seen her worry about her hair before.  
"Don't worry, it's nothing like you're imagining. It's just a little touselled. I'd fix it if I had the slightest idea what to do with women's hair."

I lifted a loose tendril from her neck and attempted to tuck it back into the twist that was coming apart at the nape of her neck.  
"You didn't seem to have any trouble messing it up," she sniped, swatting my hand away.  
I smirked, sheepishly.  
"No."  
I had to fight back the urge to kiss her again. This was a mistake. It was over. It wasn't the time for afterglow.

Instead, I fumbled with my bow tie. Alfred usually did it for me. A mirror would have been nice, but it wasn't the sort of thing they hung over a mop sink.

"Here, let me."  
Even with her heels, she was barely at eye level with my bowtie, but she tied it expertly.  
"My dad is hopeless with them too."  
She tightened my suspenders. Her breasts brushed against me, and I could smell the scent of her hair, I could feel her breath on my neck. I had to fist my hands to keep from grabbing her hips and pinning her to the wall again.

"Can you..." I stammered, pulling back, "I-I need some space."  
She backed away, looking wounded. I closed my eyes.  
"Or your dress is coming off again," I whispered. I couldn't look at her, I just had to hope that she understood.  
"Oh."

Silence swallowed the little room.

"I'm sorry, Barbara."  
"I know."  
I opened my eyes, but kept them fixed on my shoes.  
"I shouldn't have."  
"Really, really shouldn't have, no."  
"I should..." I motioned at the door.  
"Yeah."

I took my jacket and slipped out. I didn't look back.

 

~*~

 

I was in the powder room, giddy from my little adventure, and ill-equipped to get my hair and makeup back into shape - I'd left my clutch with my dad.

I had pulled all the pins out of my hair and was trying to do something with it without the equipment and supplies I had had at home. I was alone in the room, which was well away from the main body of the gala, and I was relieved for that. It wouldn't take much imagination to guess what I had been up to, if anyone had seen me.

I heard the clip of a pair of heels aproaching the door, and a tall woman slipped in. She was was graceful and slim, and her hair was so blonde as to be nearly white. She gave me a warm smile and let herself into one of the stalls to use the bathroom.

I had noticed her earlier that night, dancing with Bruce, but I felt I should know her from somewhere else as well. She had been charismatic enough to coax Bruce onto the dance floor, and that was an impressive feat in itself. And she looked like she belonged with the black-tie society crowd. She moved with confidence and poise and her black satin gown fitted her too perfectly not to be bespoke.

It dawned on me where I'd seen her before. It hadn't been recently, and it wasn't in person. When I was still in high school, I had been researching a paper in the online library archives, and had come across an engagement announcement in the Gotham Times. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Regis St. Cloud of Gotham Heights are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Silver St. Cloud, to Mr. Bruce Wayne, son of the late Thomas and Martha Wayne of Gotham. A spring wedding is planned."

Beneath it had been a photo of Bruce, smiling broadly, and the woman who had just entered the bathroom.

At the time, my jaw had dropped, and I was already reaching for my phone to text Dick, curious to see if he had any more info on the sitch. I would have never suspected Bruce had been engaged. My hand stilled mid-text. There was probably a reason for that, a reason why he had never mentioned her. I checked the date. A year before I first met him, and three years after the Batman sightings began to be reported. The spring wedding had obviously never happened. Something that was likely painful for him, and private. 

I deleted the text and continued scanning the newspaper archive for my paper, tucking that little tidbit away in my mental 'Why Bruce has difficulty getting close to people' file.

But now here she was. And her presence turned my encounter with Bruce on its head. I felt crushed and stupid and used. Bruce had been shaken up by seeing his gorgeous ex-fiancee again. She was wearing a large emerald cut diamond on her ring finger, so she was clearly married or engaged to another man now. He had used me to dull the pain of not being able to touch Silver. I was just... convenient and available.

I couldn't help it. I started to cry, although I hated myself for it, and I rushed into the other bathroom stall to avoid Silver catching a glimpse of me.  
I curled up on the toilet and sobbed as silently as I could.

I heard Silver flush and wash up, but I didn't hear the door open, so I stayed in the bathroom stall, sniffling as quietly as I could.  
I was correct in thinking Silver hadn't left, because I could see her elegant Louboutins approaching the stall door.  
There was a light tap.  
What could she possibly want from me?  
I just wanted to be alone. I just wanted to be anywhere but there. Like curled up under the covers in my bed, listening to my iPod.

"Occupado," I managed.  
"Barbara?" A soft voice, her concern evident, "are you okay?"  
How the hell did she know who I was?  
"Yeah."  
"Because you don't sound okay."  
I didn't know what to say to that. 

I just let your ex-fiancee hump me in the boiler room, because I'm a gigantic clueless idiot, but other than that, I'm swell?

"Look, you don't know me, but my name is Silver, and I've been where you are. I know what it's like to be involved with Bruce."  
My eyes widened. She was obviously not the usual vapid society girl. But then, if Bruce had loved her enough to propose, she couldn't very well be, could she?  
"I'm not involved with him," I answered, glad there was no one else in the room to hear this.  
"Anyone Bruce will ravage in a broom closet with her father and half of Gotham a few steps away, I would say he is involved."  
"You put that together, huh?"  
So fuck, everyone knew. 

I still had no idea what she could possibly want from me.

"It wasn't that hard when I saw the way he was looking at you earlier tonight, but don't worry, I don't think anyone else noticed. Good thing he's a little stealthier when he's on the job."  
I froze. Okay, so maybe she knew everything. When in doubt, play dumb.  
"I don't- what?"  
"Nothing. Do you want to talk about it?"  
I still had no idea why she was doing this, no reason to trust her. Except that maybe, Bruce had.  
"I... kind of."  
"Why don't you come out, honey? Do you have a comb with you?"  
"No." I sniffled and laughed at the same time. "My dad has my purse."  
"I'll fix up your hair."

I let myself out of the stall and followed her back to the mirrored vanities. I cringed at my reflection. Now, not only was my hair disheveled and my skin sweaty and marked up from Bruce's hands and mouth, but my eyes were red and puffy from crying. I looked tiny and pathetic and she was so polished and poised. But she also seemed kind and maternal, and I really needed some mothering right then.

She placed her clutch on the counter and shook out its contents next to the hair pins I had abandoned. It was like a utility belt full of girly touch-ups. She ran the comb through my hair and began to pin it up in the same style it had been earlier. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that she remembered, given how observant she was proving to be.

"How long have you known him?" she asked, opening a tiny tin of styling wax and using it to slick down the frizz I had sweated up.  
"Since I was...Well, I remember seeing him at my mom's funeral. That was when I was thirteen. He must have still been engaged to you then?"

I met her eyes in the mirror. She nodded.

"I remember. I don't think I attended the funeral with him."  
"It was breast cancer."  
"I'm so sorry."

I didn't usually talk about that, but she had a way of drawing me out, gently. I could see why Bruce would want to marry her. Hell, I'd met her three minutes ago, and I was firmly in favor of it.

"Thank you."

I still wasn't sure if she knew about the bat, so I kept my next words vague.  
"But I didn't really meet him until I was fifteen. Mostly I know him through his foster son, Dick Grayson."  
She smiled fondly.  
"That's right. I read that he took in that circus boy when his parents were killed. I hope its been good for him."  
"I think it has. He makes a good father."

I flushed. Until you fuck him, at least.

She picked up a compact and angled it so I could see the new arrangement of my hair in the mirror.  
"It looks great. Thank you so much."  
"I have some concealer here too. You're skin tone isn't too different from mine, let see if I can cover up-"  
For the first time, she seemed uncomfortable.  
"-some of the bite marks."  
That made for an awkward pause.

"Thank you. I mean, I would appreciate it. But you don't have to if you don't..."  
"It's fine."  
She tried for a reassuring smile, but her eyes looked sad.  
"Can you turn a little and tilt your head, please?"  
I did, and noticed the bright pink hickey Bruce had left just behind my ear.

"Wow, he really nailed you back here, and maybe the less said about that the better, I guess?" She blushed brightly. I ducked my head, doing the same.

"You were the one who broke off the engagement?" I blurted.  
"Yes."  
"He never talks about it. Not that Bruce...talks... to me about... well, anything really..."

Mission profiles. Clinical psych evals. Warehouse schematics. Chemical trace signatures. Why I kept dropping my shoulder too soon in Judo throws starting from my left.

"I wouldn't have known he was ever engaged if I hadn't seen an announcement in the paper when I was researching a school project. Why did you - or maybe that's too personal?"  
"No. It's okay. Look up, please?"  
She tapped some of the concealer around the corners of my eyes, masking the patchy red skin from my crying jag.  
"There are certain aspects of his life that I wasn't prepared to deal with."

Certain aspects.  
The Batman.

She met my eyes, and I was sure then that she knew. I couldn't wrap by head around how she could know, and still leave him. But I suppose it's like being married to a cop. I had been around it enough to know that some people just aren't cut out for it. At least she had figured it out before they got married and had children. It must have been hard.

"There hasn't been anyone since you," I started, not sure why I felt the need to comfort her, even coax her back to him, if I could. "I mean, he dates sometimes, but it's never more than that. I'd bet if you offered to take him back, he would jump at it."  
"He didn't."  
I turned to look at her without the mirror proxy.  
"I did. Tonight. I told him I had made a mistake, that I still loved him."  
As thrilled as I was not to be caught in the crossfire of this drama, my heart broke for her.  
"I told him was questioning how I could marry another man, with how I still felt for him. He told me that I had been right to leave, and that he had nothing to offer me."  
"That does sound like Bruce. I'm sorry."  
"And I'm sorry to drag you into my little troubles. I'm sure you are confused enough as it is. Here." She handed me a tube of lipstick. "It's lighter than the shade you were wearing, but people will just think it faded a bit."  
"Thank you. You are... extremely kind. I can see what he saw in you. What he still sees in you. Maybe..."

This was none of my business. Bruce certainly didn't deserve anyone advocating for him after the way he'd behaved that evening.

"Maybe you're giving up too easily. It takes time with Bruce. He'll always push you away the first time. Don't give up on him. You should try again."  
Silver swallowed and shook her head.

"I don't think so. He was very guarded, even when I knew him, but now he's completely walled himself off."  
"I... Well, I guess I don't really have a rebuttal for that. I know he can be... difficult."  
"I don't think I should have told him. I should have left it alone. But I'm glad to have met you. I'm glad he has you. You seem to have found a chink in his armor."

I laughed, bitterly.  
"I think I just happened to be the nearest accessible vagina."  
"I don't believe that for a second. He's Bruce Wayne. Every vagina in this building is accessible to him. But he doesn't do casual sex. If he sleeps with you, it's because he feels something for you. Plus, I've never known Bruce to do something that impulsive and risky for any woman. He certainly didn't do it to lash out at me. Whatever happened tonight between you, it's because of how he feels about you."  
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to be something other than a painkiller to him. But it wasn't true.  
"I'm like a sister to him. He's told me as much. When he notices me at all."

"Oh honey." She hugged me. "Maybe he meant it. But I knew him for a long time, and I can read him pretty well, and the way he was looking at you tonight is not the way a man looks at a sister."  
She picked up the last thing she hadn't loaded back into her clutch, a silver card case.  
"Look, this is my card. I'm in Gotham for work at least half of any given month. If he's driving you crazy and you need to talk to someone who understands, give me a call. We'll meet for lunch."  
"I... thank you."  
"Don't thank me. Just take care of him."  
"I try."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so thrilled to see I have subscribers on this story. This is my first fic and for a small fandom I wasn't expecting much. 
> 
> This is just to let you know that I have not abandoned the story. I am almost done with chapter 8 and hope to have it posted next weekend or the next at latest. As usual, RL is kicking my ass right now. 
> 
> I do have the entire story outlined and large portions are already written, and I am determined to check that completed box - not sure on an exact chapter count but probably about 20.


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